


Punk As Hell

by Aesoleucian



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Worldbuilding, non-canon pronouns, racism and classism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 15:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 43,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3416663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoleucian/pseuds/Aesoleucian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rewind of Petrohex is a little too busy working themself to death to start Cybertron's first ever punk movement... at least until they meet a clueless librarian who could finally help grant their activism legitimacy. This is gonna be punk as hell, but it's not gonna be easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I took giantrobotgirlfriend's The Transformers: The Musical continuity way outside of its intended purview and this happened.

The Great Library at Iacon, unofficially affiliated with the Iacon Academy of Sciences and UNHI, was always very clean, looming over the surrounding buildings like a gleaming white Metrotitan. Notably, it was clean because at night bots crawled over its face, scrubbing off exhaust fumes and rust thrown up by passing vehicular alt modes during the day. Rewind had never been because, hello, you didn’t get a lot of time _off_ working with research parties on the Sea of Rust. Here read ‘working with’ as ‘it was the least objectionable option when you literally _had_ to work, and sometimes you got paid or treated like a person.’

Well. They were going in now, was what mattered. Shore leave for the win.

They passed casually by the main entrance, which was watched by two large trucks—Rewind couldn’t help automatically categorizing people by alt mode, though they’d been trying to get out of the habit—and turned into the alley between the library and the IAS outbuilding next door. They ducked into an alcove and peered out at the street to see if anyone had noticed… No. Good. It was _technically_ a public library, but that wouldn’t slow down those really gigantic bots by the door. ‘Public’ didn’t mean it was for everyone, it meant you didn’t need a _pass_ to get in. A pass wouldn’t help you. Rewind did have a pass, though, of a sort; they held their left hand to the doorframe and started pinging likely RFID frequencies. After a couple of minutes, they had it: a surprisingly simple three-frequency interference lock.

They found themself in an access corridor lined with doors with labels like ‘Rare Data’ and ‘Classified,’ rooms with much sturdier locks. It wasn’t nearly as clean as the outside of the building. There were dead rust mites in small drifts in the corners, acid stains creeping down the walls. Rewind took the first lift downward. The basement would be a good place to start; the data there wasn’t usually looked at, which meant not only the stuff down there wouldn’t be common knowledge but also there wouldn’t be anyone to see Rewind.

The first place they headed through the rusty stacks was the modern history section. They were already thumbing over the edges of the datapads on lower shelves, revelling in the breadth of the available data, when they heard a noise. They froze in place, wishing they had the proximity sensors a vehicle would. Was someone here?

Their question was answered almost immediately as muffled footsteps rounded the corner at the end of the row, and a red and blue bot came into view, staring intently at a datapad. She didn’t see Rewind until she was nearly on top of them, and then came to an abrupt halt. She was so tall that her eyes shifted sideways rather than up to look from her datapad to Rewind.

“Um, do you need some, some help finding something?” she asked. Rewind scanned her quickly. Pristine paintjob, probably some kind of armored data transport, hunched posture that suggested she was trying to look smaller than her nine meters. And she seemed to have no clue that Rewind wasn’t supposed to be in here. This bot _never_ got out.

“Yeahhhh. I was looking for. Uh.” They hadn’t been looking for anything, just browsing until something caught their fancy. They pulled a datapad out at random and read off the label: “I was looking for _An Unabridged History of Northwestern Quadrant Political Strife_ by Burnout of Vos Minor. Which is convenient. Because it’s right here.”

The librarian’s face lit up like an incandescent bulb, and she straightened up. Her wide fingers tapped on the edge of her datapad like she couldn’t bear to hold them still. “Burnout is one of my favorite authors! His style is so engaging, and the footage complements the text perfectly, I always thought he should make vidreels for the people. Wouldn’t it be amazing if everyone could understand the history of our planet and how it shapes the present?”

“Uh huh. Sure. If they had time between conserving energy in standby and being worked to death.”

Scrap. That was a really stupid thing to say. This was literally the worst possible time to get antagonistic about ignorant middle-class bots who were too idealistic for this world.

The librarian only frowned like she was confused. “Is that, er, are you? What?” She leaned down, probably unconsciously.

“Nothing. Nothing. Forget I said anything.” And don’t throw me out.

“Are there bots who…?”

Rewind shrugged. “Well, you know, just a couple million Disposables who have a finite amount of energon and never get topped up and then slightly get used as slave labor. Teensy bit. Maybe a modest amount of arrests and beatings for crimes they didn’t commit.” Also the worst time for passive-aggressive sarcasm, you _bolthead_. Why couldn’t they stay afraid instead of getting angry? _Fear_ kept them _smart_ , but anger was going to get them killed one of these days.

“Oh. Disposables.” Her expressive mouth twisted in a grimace. “When you say slave labor—”

“I mean if we actually get paid we’re lucky slaggers and should be grateful enough to stop complaining about getting kicked around. Or worse.”

“Er, that can’t be right, nobody would treat another Cybertronian like that, would they?”

Rewind directed their most corrosive glare upward at the librarian. Might as well go all in. “You’d know, wouldn’t you? You look like a bot who gets out a lot, sees a lot of the _Disposable_ class in their native environment. That’d be knee-deep in a smelting pool, if you’re interested. Metaphorically speaking. It’s bots like you who are the problem, d’you know that? Bots who are content to ignore what’s going on right under their noses and live in nice shiny libraries reading about revolutions from millions of years ago, going ‘Isn’t it nice we’ve moved past that?’ People like you have got a _responsibility_ —” They stopped when the librarian knelt in front of them.

“I’d not heard,” she said softly. Her eyes were downcast, but as she spoke she raised them to look steadily into Rewind’s visor. Rewind was taken aback. They’d never gotten such an impression of… sincerity. Humility. “I’d like to learn more, and, and maybe help if I can. Where should I look for information?”

Rewind backed up a step. It took a little space to reassert their confident affect, though they were now much closer to the librarian’s eye level. “Well, I’d be a good place to start…?”

The librarian leaned forward again. She had gotten that the sentence wasn’t finished, but not what Rewind was asking. “What’s your name?” they clarified, going for a brusque tone to make sure she didn’t think she was off the hook.

“Orion Pax.” It was little more than a murmur.

“Well, Orion Pax, I’d be an _excellent_ place to start. I like to think of myself as an archivist when I’m not sorting tables of chemical composition and that dross. You’d have a hard time finding a more complete collection of Disposable history and culture than right here.” They tapped the side of their head. “I actually came here to see if I could get my hands on some history from the last cycle leading up to our current nasty system of oppression.”

“Burnout’s _Unabridged Northwestern_ won’t be very helpful there,” said Orion Pax, ever the librarian. “It’s more about interstate politics than policy within any one city. I could definitely make some recommendations—er. I’m not actually a librarian, I’m an archivist too. I’ve just read a lot of these. I’m supposed to be down here re-tagging.”

“I didn’t really think this datapad would be helpful,” they said, a little defensively. “I just panicked and grabbed it, because I’m not supposed to be here at all. I thought you were going to throw me out or hand me to the bouncers.”

“Why would I do that? This is a public library. Everyone’s allowed in here.”

“I see you’ve missed another crucial detail of life. Things that signs say aren’t always the same as policies that are enforced. In this case, Disposables are _theoretically_ allowed in the library but if you ever try to get in those thugs at the entrance glare at you threateningly, won’t open those huge heavy doors, pointedly ask whether you shouldn’t be at work. Et cetera. I, er, I kind of broke in here.”

Pax looked shocked and indignant, and in the moment it took for her to muster words Rewind was sure they were about to be punished for breaking in. Then she said, “That’s horrible! Knowledge should be free for anyone who wants it! Denying an education to people just because they’re…” She fumbled with the end of the sentence and dropped it.

“Going to die before the end of the century because no-one can be bothered to feed them, yeah, it’s not fair. I’m still working out how to get them to stop that.” They let out a small bitter laugh, mostly to let Pax know they weren’t being too serious.

“I’d like to help.” _Her_ expression was extremely serious. “When can you spare the time to talk to me? We can talk over energon, if you like. That is,” the awkwardness was back, “I suppose you don’t get to eat very often?”

Actual food. Now there was an offer you didn’t get every day. “I would be _so_ happy to talk over energon. When does your shift end?”

Orion Pax stood up, suddenly towering over Rewind again. “Three hours. Here, I can recommend you some datapads and you can sit in here while I tag. If you like. Nobody else is going to come down here. There aren’t a lot of history students at the university any more.”

Rewind smiled. “I’d like that, Orion Pax. By the way, I’m Rewind.” They offered their hand to grasp in the chirolingual tradition. Though Pax’s hand was large enough to enclose Rewind’s head, she wrapped it carefully around Rewind’s fingers, just brushing their forearm plating.

“That’s an appropriate name for an archivist,” she said.

—

“D’you know, I’ve literally never gotten drunk before? This is cool.” Rewind adjusted their angle on Pax’s leg. It was hard, because it kept _moving_ because she was _walking_ , actually because she was walking Rewind home to their rented hab suite, which was pretty nice of her. Except her leg kept moving. “I’m gonna write it down in my logs. I can’t wait till I can afford a camera, it’s gonna be the sweetest scrap ever.”

“Er, you did say. Several times. All of those things.”

“They’re _important_.”

“I’m very sorry. I didn’t know that you don’t have an FIM chip. I would have warned you.” She had also said this several times.

“I’ll get angry later,” said Rewind generously, trying not to fall over. “I’m pretty pleased about it at the moment.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?”

“You think I can’t walk on my own? You think you’re better than me ‘cos you have a big old wheely alt mode? Huh?”

“I, I don’t mean to be rude, but you actually can’t walk on your own.” If she got any more apologetic she would dig a hole in the street. Hah. That was a metaphor that made a lot of sense. This was a good street for digging holes in, now. 30% rust, 20% carbon, 1.5% trace impurities, 100% terrible. At being a street. Rewind tripped on a jagged hole in it and fell flat on their face, and it turned out Rewind was a _lot_ better at being a street.

They felt a huge hand pick them up and deposit them in a seat, where they sat happily for several minutes, staring out a windscreen at the lights going by. Eventually Orion Pax let them out through her door and transformed to peer worriedly down at them. “Rewind. We’re here. Are you okay? Can you remember your suite number?”

“Sure, it’s 1019, do you remember _your_ suite number?”

Pax frowned. “Is that actually—”

“Rewind!” They turned to see Hi-Pass running out the front door of the hab building. “Primus, we were worried about you!” He skidded to a halt as he saw Orion Pax, somehow having missed her. “A-are you in trouble?”

“Naahhhhhh,” said Rewind, but Pax spoke over them: “Rewind is overcharged, so I drove them home. It’s my fault, I’m afraid.”

Hi-Pass darted in to pull Rewind away from Pax’s steadying hand. “You’re safe now. Let’s get you inside before…” He glanced nervously up at Pax and started pushing Rewind toward the door. “Good evening, sir.”

“Thanks, OP, I’ll see you later! Next time I’m on shore leave maybe.” Rewind turned halfway around to wave at Pax. It was kind of funny how scared Hi-Pass was. And yeah, that was a mean thing to think, but really Pax was harmless. Hi-Pass would think it was funny too when Rewind explained. “Call me!” they shouted.

Hi-Pass dragged Rewind into the building, and then into the lift, and started checking them for damage as it stuttered up toward the tenth floor. “Do I want to know why a bulk dropped you off here and you can’t stand up straight?”

“Okay, so, I broke into the library.”

“And they _drugged_ you?”

“Nooo. I met this stupid archivist and she was like, everyone should get to learn history, and I was like, okay but, what if they can’t ‘cos they’re gonna die. And she took me out for drinks.” Hi-Pass still looked confused, so they kept explaining. “She doesn’t know scrap about biology so she didn’t even know I didn’t have FIM! How funny is that?”

“Not funny at all, actually. I thought you’d gotten arrested or killed or something worse, and you were risking your _life_ to flirt with a bulk you met today.”

“I wasn’t flirting!” Rewind said indignantly, letting Hi-Pass push them out of the lift. “I was educating her about, like, social justice stuff. She knows nothing about _anything_. It’s really sad. Also I got angry and started shouting at her and she still wanted to learn.”

“You are literally going to get beaten to death some day,” said Hi-Pass, sounding faint. He unlocked the door, single frequency lock, and guided Rewind inside. “And then who’s going to help us pay rent while Beamer is gone?”

“You’ll find someone,” said Rewind. “Iacon’s full of Disposables who need a place to stay. Hi, Eject!”

Eject turned over to watch them, and shut off his internal music with a click. “Oh, nice, you’re not dead. How on Cybertron did you manage to get _that drunk_? Rob a lab?”

Rewind lay down across Eject’s torso and started patting his arm aimlessly. “A nice bulk took me out for drinks.”

“Whoo, what’d you have to do for ‘em? Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t worth it.”

“Just talking. Can you guys interrogate me tomorrow when my brain works?”

Hi-Pass vented exasperatedly out through the holes in his cheeks, and transformed. “Fine. I’m going to standby. You’d better burn off some charge.” His alt mode with its round corners always looked a little reproachful.

“I don’t want to move,” Rewind mumbled. After a while, they said, “Hey Eject? D’you think I could get a job in Iacon?”

“Sure. Toss-up whether it’d be a good one, though. You thinking of ditching the Rust guys?”

“Mm. Maybe.”

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UNHI = University of the Northern Hemisphere at Iacon. Every city-state has at least one University of the Northern (or Southern) Hemisphere, and a couple have two. The Neutral Territories is unique in that, being on the equator, it has one of both.


	2. Chapter 2

Rewind took great pleasure in creeping silently up behind Orion Pax and saying loudly, “You never called me!” just to watch her jump. Probably? A pretty stupid thing to do, in case there was someone else in the basement, but worth it.

“Rewind! I, I did mean to call, but I thought you must be very busy, and I didn’t know your schedule, and you said you wouldn’t be in Iacon anyway, so I decided it would be better if I didn’t. And. You were pretty overcharged when you gave me your hailing frequency.”

“Fine, fine, you don’t like me, I don’t like you, I’m just here for the datapads. How have you been?” Rewind cocked their head to look up at Pax.

Gradually, it became clear that she was confused, and maybe a little bit hurt. This probably meant they should reign in their sarcasm. “I’m kidding. It was a joke. I’ll try and think of some funnier ones.”

After a pause she said, “Oh. Um. I’ve done a lot of research since we met. It’s very interesting trying to find out which sources are reliable and which ones get censored. And what they censor. Different people have very different things to say about protests, robberies, er, murders, and the like. There’s this recent case, very controversial—”

“That’ll be DPrC0048902, right? Xe destroyed all records of xyr name, so the news had to use xyr serial number if they wanted to report on xem. Brilliant. I dunno if anything can actually make bulks re-examine their perception of Disposables as interchangeable but… it’s still brilliant. Everyone on the north end had their biolights dark for a month.”

“I didn’t think much of xyr death when it happened,” said Orion softly. “Workplace accidents are very common. Or… I suppose a lot of them aren’t accidents.”

“I don’t know what you’ve dug up, but the real story is, xe’d been an activist for decades and finally those exhaust-suckers xe had to work with got to be too much. Middle of an info vid xe stopped projecting and transformed and… they beat xem into a literal pile of scrap.”

“The news…” Pax sounded sick. “The news said xe tried to attack xyr coworkers…"

“They say a lot of things that aren’t true.”

In the awkward silence, Pax seemed to cast around for something less horribly depressing to talk about. “I’ve, um, also come across an interesting treatise by a cultural studies major at the University of the Northern Hemisphere, about lower-class graffiti turning up in mainstream fashion. I thought it was strange because Dis, Disposable culture isn’t something the upper class normally approves of. The author didn’t go into why or how it became a trend, but there were some beautiful examples.”

“Really!” said Rewind, sitting up. “Have they pulled anything by Aerocel? She does incredible colors, I’d think bulks would like them. Anyway I think it’s disgusting. I bet they get rid of the message and just leave the aesthetic ‘cos it’s _pretty_. It’s extra nasty ‘cos Aerocel’s all about emotion, just the fact that everyone feels it the same. You guys won’t even acknowledge that we do love like normal people, how screwed up is that?”

“Er…” Orion’s mouth twisted.

“Oh, yeah, you wouldn’t know Aerocel. No-one credits artists if their work is technically illegal, huh?” Rewind extended a cable from their wrist and held it out toward her. “Link up and I’ll show you, her stuff is gorgeous.”

Orion actually physically recoiled, drawing her hands up closer to her chest. Then she realized what she had done and grimaced. “Sorry. The people I usually associate with don’t, well we don’t usually link up with people we don’t know very well. I’m only surprised.”

She wasn’t only surprised. Rewind gave an exaggerated shrug and popped out a minidrive, which they held out to Orion. “It hasn’t got a virus. Primus, you bulks are prudes.”

She took it quickly and stuck it into the back of her head. Her eyes became fixed as she looked over the amateur photographs Rewind had collected of Aerocel’s work, and then she smiled. “It’s lovely. She does an incredible job of conveying emotion through color and form. May I keep this?”

“Sure.” Rewind was feeling generous. Aerocel was one of their favorite artists and it was nice to know even bulks knew a good thing when they saw one. “It doesn’t take much to make them, really, I just need to process some decently clean metal and find a source for semiconductors. Can I see what rubbish fashions they’ve come up with? What disgusting designer is perpetrating this crime against the arts?” Orion looked a little worried again. Rewind really had to stop making jokes.

It turned out that there were several conspirators in the fashion crime, which just _figured_. Needlenose was involved, no surprise there, she was always a hack, but Rewind had thought better of Sunstreaker. He did very elegant work, they’d always thought. It just went to show, you never knew with bulks. Orion listened timidly to Rewind’s animated rant about the distribution of talent in the art world—oh, and it never was where the bulks thought, was it?—but they couldn’t tell if she was enjoying or agreeing with it. Maybe she was just absorbing it to think about later. Rewind could respect that.

As Rewind paused after a lengthy impromptu dissertation on Disposable fashion as influenced by visibility politics, Pax found her voice again. “I wonder if the, er, arts industry is also picking up on other artforms from the street. Now that I think about it, I’d quite like to hear some of the music you produce. I don’t spend a lot of time on the sorts of corners where people busk.”

Rewind sat up straighter. “You know, I try not to listen to pop if I can help it, but that’s a _very_ good question. Let’s play a game.” They looked up expectantly at Orion until she nodded. “You come up with a song you think sounds like it might be by a Disposable artist and I’ll see if I can recognize it!”

“Oh, um, okay.” Orion’s face went blank as she searched through her database for a few moments, and then she looked up to say shyly, “This is actually my favorite song right now.” Out of her speakers (and oh, that high quality audio! Rewind was used to the clipping and the staticky hiss of Disposable playback) came a melancholy song, just vocals and simple percussion, a song about watching the sun rise over city smog from the top of a tall building. It was all very metaphorical for the emotional trials of existence.

“Yeah,” said Rewind. “The original’s by 8-Track, it’s about watching your friends disappear and die. There’s a verse about a guy who was broadcasting inflammatory programs on public radio and later they find em disassembled in a ditch. Catchy as hell, though.”

Pax looked stricken, like Rewind had just reached into her spark and swapped some connections around at random. “It, it—it—” She paused to collect herself. “It is? I mean, how could they…”

“Death and dismemberment don’t sell well among the upper class,” said Rewind. “You have good taste, though. Musically, if not lyrically. Er,” she added, watching Pax’s face, “I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with the lyrics. It’s just weird considering what they’re supposed to be.”

“It’s weird for me too… The song means a lot to me, and to find out it’s…”

“A tool of oppression,” muttered Rewind. Pax nodded. “It makes me furious! We make beautiful things and then you turn them into whatever you want! Nobody cares what Disposables have to _say_ , th—” They stopped and looked up at Pax, suddenly struck by a thought. “But they would listen to you, wouldn’t they?”

“What?”

“Listen, it’s not who says it that’s important. It’s what gets said, and what people hear. If someone like you told someone our society’s built on slave labor, they’d be a little more likely to listen. They’d trust you. If a Disposable says it, they’re being lazy and trying to get out of work, or they’re trying to grab extra privilege they don’t need. If you say it—well, you’re a librarian. Sorry, an archivist. You know things, you study history. They’d listen to you.”

“How would I bring it up? People would think it was weird if I just… started talking about it unprompted.”

“Just.” It _was_ a hard question. Of course you couldn’t come on too strong, or bulks would be suspicious. “If it comes up, I guess. If your friends are talking about violent crime or protests, if they’re blaming us for the scrap we have to take… Say something. You could even bring it up if you see it in the news—but what’ll win them is _facts_. If you have hard evidence of the truth it doesn’t matter what the media say.” They smiled suddenly and clasped Pax’s hand. “Knowledge is power. ‘We are only as strong as our signal. There is a war going on for your mind. If you are thinking, you are winning. Resistance is victory. Defeat is impossible.’ That’s _The Flow Bots_ , another street artist. It’s kind of a personal motto for me.”

“It’s beautiful. May I have the song?”

“You may have the whole album. Maybe your friends will like it.”

—

“Rewind! REWIND! Get over here, you’ll want to see this.”

Rewind looked up, irritated at being pulled out of their concentration. “ _What_ , Eject?” they asked, pausing their analysis. “I’m a little busy.”

“Your friend’s on the news, the big one.” Rewind continued to glare at him. “The big one, the librarian. The one Hi-Pass says you have a crush on!”

“Orion Pax? Why on Cybertron is she on the news?”

“Come LOOK, bolthead.” Rewind got up and walked over to stand by Eject, who was staring up at the vidscreen the project manager had insisted helped people work. “They’re interviewing her about this fight she broke up, look.”

“ _You saw a Disposable being attacked and you stopped to help?_ ” The newscaster sounded incredulous.

“ _Rundown was trying to help her friend,_ ” said Pax. “ _I could see that they would both be hurt if no-one intervened._ ” She looked incredibly uncomfortable.

The newscaster grimaced at the camera like _wow, get a load of this guy_ , but said, “ _A hero standing up for those too weak to defend themselves. A dangerous situation defused. Stembolt, who works in the docks district, has sustained only minor injuries. Thanks again to—_?”

“ _Orion Pax._ ” She muttered her own name like she was trying to get it as far away from her as possible.

“ _Orion Pax! And now for the weather. A biiig acid storm is moving in from Uraya tonight…_ ”

The screen cut to footage of boiling sulphurous clouds over the Urayacon border. Rewind could imagine Orion looming awkwardly over the newscaster, trying to muster the courage to ask whether she could go. They turned to go back to their workstation.

“Well?” said Eject, leaning onto Rewind’s shoulder. “Orion Pax, huh? She’s cute _and_ protective.”

Rewind vented loudly and met Eject’s visor. “If you must know, I’m disappointed by the caster’s reaction. They’re still trying to downplay the fact that there’s no consequences for kicking around Disposables. Pax isn’t a hero for protecting the downtrodden, she’s a hero for making sure some bulk didn’t get hurt by those terrifying three-meter-tall sewage workers!”

“Chill,” said Eject, pushing off Rewind’s shoulder. After a considering pause, he added, “Out.” Rewind glared at him. “Look, bro, it’s not like I _like_ being the guy who collects the extra beatings, but if you keep your head down you’re fine. The way _you_ do things you’re only gonna get yourself killed.”

“I suppose those two weren’t keeping their heads low enough?” snarled Rewind, pulling away from Eject to stalk back to their station. “And if I get myself killed I’ll still have accomplished more than you!” they added over their shoulder.

It was hard to concentrate, because they kept getting sidetracked thinking about how _wrong_ Eject was, but eventually they managed to lose themself in their work again. They stayed for two hours after everyone else had gone, hoping Eject would be in standby by the time they got home. He was wrong, and, yeah, Rewind was being a jerk about it. That still didn’t mean they were going to apologize. They stomped out into the night, feeling like an acid storm themself.

The streets were deserted, and their loud footsteps quickly softened as they started to feel really conspicuous. When was the storm coming in? Did they actually have time to make it home? Maybe they should standby at the lab…

Minutes later they started to hear the plinking noise that meant rain was here. Cursing, they sprinted back toward the lab building, covering their head with their hands. They ended up making it all right with mostly superficial damage. But where were they going to get new paint? They didn’t exactly have shanix leaking out their tailpipe.

They sighed, tucked themself into a closet, and transformed to go into standby. At least they’d be early for work tomorrow.

—

“It was good, really good of you, but you had to have seen what the newscaster was doing. Trying to frame it like you saved the bulk, not the little guys.”

“Yes. I understand a bit more. It’s incredibly frustrating, but I’m not sure how to contradict them without… hm…”

“Just seems wrong for some reason, you don’t even know why. It’s impolite to bring it up. They don’t even need to shut you up ‘cos you do it for them.”

Orion Pax frowned. “I will try to change my behavior. I will try to make it a habit to speak when something is wrong.”

Rewind smiled up at her and patted her hand. “That’s all anyone can ask. Actually, do you want to speak up about it really loudly?” Pax looked at them, waiting for them to go on. They bounced slightly as they continued: “I know a guy. A radio DJ. A lot of people listen to her program, and she’s more into Disposable rights than any other bulk I’ve met.”

“Why haven’t you asked for her help before?”

Rewind shifted to a slightly less comfortable position, leaning back against their oversized chair. “To be honest, I’ve been afraid. It’s a pretty big thing trying to start a civil rights movement, especially one that could get you and all your friends killed. It takes a lot of work and it’s kind of weird trying to explain to people to recruit them and… I just feel better about it since I already have you.”

Pax made a small noise, possibly involuntary, and enfolded Rewind’s hand between her enormous hands, like an echo. “I will do everything I can to support you, and it means a lot to me that I can make you feel safer.” This was the cutest thing Rewind had ever seen. The actual cutest thing. This enormous bulk who was so earnestly happy that she could make Rewind happy, one of maybe three bulks Rewind had ever not been afraid of. They were getting a weirdly protective feeling in their spark. Ridiculous.

“Fantastic. If you want to compare schedules with me we can go visit her sometime. I’d like to go in person because. Hm. I think you’ll see when you meet her. She’s very charismatic.”

And that was how Rewind and Orion Pax ended up at the CFRS in Triax, waiting outside Blaster’s recording studio. They _had_ called ahead, but Rewind was still nervous. They had no reason to be nervous, especially not with Orion Pax looming next to them—maybe Pax’s fidgeting was catching. As it was, when Blaster walked out and caught sight of Rewind she beamed broadly and went down on one knee to offer Rewind a complex fist bump/handshake combo. Rewind could barely keep track of it, but when Blaster stood up again they were smiling too. It was really charming.

“It’s great to see you again, really great. This is Orion Pax, the friend I mentioned…” They waited while Blaster enthusiastically grasped Pax’s hand, Pax mumbling a greeting. “Can we sit down somewhere? It’s a bit awkward having to crane my neck up at you both.”

“Where are my manners?” Blaster exclaimed. “We have a green room, c’mon, it’s pretty nice.” She led them up a floor through the rampwell, and into a room striped in copper and bismuth green. In the center was table surrounded haphazardly by low chairs, a bowl of energon sticks and an empty pitcher. As soon as Blaster turned away to fill the pitcher, Rewind started grabbing energon sticks to store in their tiny subspace compartment. It was so difficult to take liquid energon home, and they rarely ever saw solid-state snacks.

Blaster returned and poured cubes for each of them; Rewind perched on the back of their chair to bring themself closer to eye level with the other two. “Now, I’m trying to organize a massive protest for Disposable rights. I’m thinking about shutting down downtown Iacon. A lot of people are already angry about the pro-military legislation the Senate’s just pushed through, and I think we could get up a good amount of momentum for real, important change. If you’ll help us.”

Blaster leaned her elbows on the table, resting her chin on folded hands as she stared into Rewind’s visor. “And what do you want from me? A secure comms network? I could go to jail for a long time for that.”

Rewind shook their head. “I don’t want it to be secure or private. I want _everyone_ to know.” They held up a hand to stop Blaster as she started to interrupt, and she subsided. “I want all the Torus-states to know. I want everyone who cares about our rights to know. I even want the police to know, because if they’re worried about what we’ll do, it legitimizes us. Bottom line is, without you I won’t reach enough people to make a difference.”

“I’ll _definitely_ get fired, and I’ll probably end up somewhere much worse than prison. Telling the wide world to join a protest—even a peaceful protest—against the Senate… while it ain’t illegal, the courts _will_ find me guilty under the Sedition Act. We’re talking torture, life in a camp—if some of my friends are to be believed, The Institute.”

Rewind stood, growling the loudest, deepest growl they could pull out of their tiny engine. “You think we’re not all looking forward to the same? You think we don’t _know_ what could happen?”

“Sit down, Rewind. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you.” Rewind’s engine muttered back into a high idle. “What I meant was, do we have contingency plans? Safehouses? Do we know what we’re gonna do if it goes bad? I’d prefer not to start a revolution with the expectation that I’ll be interned for it. Call me an optimist but I like to assume I’ll make it through in one piece.”

As Rewind sat back down, Orion laid one massive hand over their knees. It felt like a restraint, like a warning, though she probably meant it to be comforting. They glanced coldly at her out of the corner of their visor, but didn’t tell her to take her hand off them. This was a time to present a united front. “Right. Well. Thanks for bringing that up. It’s something I hadn’t given a lot of thought to. I’ll admit sometimes I’ve got a little more anger than common sense.” It felt like Orion’s hand was crushing them, and they were starting to feel something really bad would happen if it stayed. They flicked at it until she moved, pretending it was so they could reach their energon cube on the table.

“I hear ya,” said Blaster, smiling as she sipped from her own cube. “This is gonna take some planning, and I don’t want to start anything ‘til I know we can finish it. Deal?” She held out her hand across the table. Rewind took it.

“Deal.”

—

Organizing a massive protest was no mean feat. Rewind had volunteered to store and process all the data but there was so much _more_ than they’d expected. Thousands of people’s schedules, including police, Academy classes, and work shifts, not to mention transports for people coming in from other city-states. And they hadn’t even put out the broadcast yet! It was actually incredibly encouraging that they already had so many people who wanted to join, just by word of mouth… But it was also a massive headache. Literally.

Rewind was lying on the floor of their rented suite with their optics off, making tiny whimpering noises, when Hi-Pass came home. They heard the door slide open, and his footsteps (heavier than Eject’s and Beamer’s) before he stopped in front of them with a sigh.

“Data overload again, Rewind? You need to take better care of yourself.”

“ ‘m trying to take care of five-odd thousand people,” they mumbled. “I can take a little pain. B’sides, I’m almost done processing, then I can standby.”

“That’s fantastic, Rewind, honestly, but it would also be really nice if you went to work so you could pay your share of the rent.”

Rewind turned on one of their optics at the lowest setting in order to glare lopsidedly at Hi-Pass. “I’m only trying to change the world. Y’know, so people like, say, _you_ can walk around at night without being afraid.”

“You have an even chance of making things worse,” he said crossly, sitting down by Rewind’s feet. “And call me self-absorbed, but my main priority right now is making sure we have a roof over our head next time there’s a massive acid storm.”

“I’ll start working again after Shutdown 558. I’ll work harder than ever. I’ll pay half the rent. Just… let me alone for another _two weeks_.”

Rewind felt the gentle puff of air on their faceplate as Hi-Pass sighed again, and heard him scoot close enough to pull them to a sitting position, wrapping his arm around their shoulders. “I worry a lot,” he said softly, pressing his helm against Rewind’s. “You guys make fun of me for it, but it’s because I care about you. And it’s kept us alive so far. Please be careful, Rewind. We don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t want to lose me either. Or you, or Beamer or Eject.” They turned their head to tap their forehead on Hi-Pass’ helm projection. “Thanks. I.” They laughed quietly. “I’m not great at affection but, thanks. I’ve been spending so much time with bulks lately, I’ve forgotten how it feels when someone I can trust holds me.”

It felt like home. They couldn’t forget, they couldn’t ever forget, what it meant that home was the people who cared about you. Smiling, they leaned further and further onto Hi-Pass until they were just lying on top of him, laughing as he tried to make them get off. When Beamer came home she sat on Rewind’s torso and started talking about her day at work. Rewind fell into standby, processing finally done, with her chatter washing over their audioreceptors.

When they woke, there were 82 data transfer requests waiting for them.

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote is from "We Are Winning" by Flobots. Please do yourself a favor and listen to [tumblr user buttastic's ridiculously great Rewind mix](http://8tracks.com/zorrin/will-you-preach), which is part of the reason this fic exists.
> 
> Also, the CFRS that Blaster works at is a branch of the Cybertron Free Radio Station.


	3. Chapter 3

This was it. This was the day. 316th day of cycle 558. The broadcast had gone out almost a week ago, and since then Rewind and Blaster had been hiding at Orion Pax’s habitation block, having more and more trouble going into standby at night. There weren’t warrants for their arrest, but it was well known that police had orders to stun them on sight. And after that… they tried not to think about it. They were all going to be extremely visible today at Shutdown.

Orion was up before Blaster, processing her energon ration, which had to do for the three of them. She would insist on giving Rewind energon, although they had said they didn’t expect any.  
Rewind sat up in the dark room, bringing their optics online now that they didn’t have to pretend to be in standby. “Nervous?” they asked quietly. Orion jumped, and turned around.

“I’ve never been more nervous in my life. People might die today.”

“Hopefully not,” said Rewind. “It is a _peaceful_ protest. The police should have a hard time coming up with a reason to start shooting.”

“Should. Yeah.” Blaster was awake too. She transformed into her root mode and went to the processing room, giving Rewind an absent-minded fist bump as she passed. “Let’s not kid ourselves, we have a good chance of getting totally fragged. We’re the ringleaders.”

“We have just under an hour,” said Rewind. “What have we forgotten?”

There had to be something, but as they went through everything again, they couldn’t find it. In the end they had to be content with the state of their plans. They walked out of Orion’s building into a loose crowd, mostly out-of-towners who were there early because they didn’t have homes to wait in. When they saw Rewind’s party, they started to condense. Disposables clustered around Rewind to speak excitedly, and bulks were almost invariably attracted to Orion and Blaster. Who would have thought, huh?

A large number of bots arrived at the stroke of eight, and it was at this point that Rewind got up on Blaster’s shoulders, plugged into her speakers, and addressed them. “Hello, everyone. You’ve heard of me; I’m Rewind of Petrohex. Helping me out with communications is Blaster of Altihex, and my fellow organizer is Orion Pax of Iacon. Thank you all so much for being here today, it means a lot that so many people are willing to support us and help get our message out. Now, I know you’re all really angry about how we’ve been treated, that’s why you’re here, but this is a _peaceful_ protest. The police may use force—may even use lethal force—but it is up to us to prove that we are better than they are. We will not try to hurt them. We have never wanted to hurt them. We’re not here for a fight. We’re here to make our voices heard. So be as loud as you want, but don’t lay a finger on them. Who’s ready to send them a message they’ll never forget?”

The crowd roared. Engines revved, and signs went up. SMALL DOESN’T MEAN DISPOSABLE and DON’T TREAD ON ME and JUSTICE FOR FLASHDRIVE—and one that Rewind was proud to see, a quote from their broadcast: WE’RE PEOPLE, NOT TOOLS.

Soon after, the police showed up. They hadn’t been waiting before the protest began, which suggested to Rewind that they had been hoping it would be one big non-event. As areas of Iacon too thick with protestors to drive in grew larger, more police officers gathered around the edges. They arrived with guns drawn, but weren’t using them yet.

It wasn’t until the State Guard arrived that Rewind reckoned they were in trouble.

They had been with Blaster at the front of the crowd pushing toward the Senate building, talking to bulks to find out why they were interested in the cause. One of them was actually a police cadet who had grown bitter about the corruption in the system, which Rewind found very encouraging. Xe had been talking enthusiastically about possible reforms when xe stopped mid-sentence, looking at something over Rewind’s head.

“Jazz?” Rewind turned around to look, but couldn’t see over the heads of the bulks between them and the front line. “Is everything all right?”

“They’ve brought in the State Guard,” xe said faintly. “The big guns. You know how we’ve heard the police were picking fights at the south end? These guys pick way meaner fights.”

Jazz was about to say more, but an amplified voice cut through the crowd. “This demonstration is not authorized and is in clear violation of public inconvenience laws. You have been asked several times to clear the streets to make way for lawful business. Your non-compliance is grounds for arrest.”

“You can’t arrest us all!” someone shouted. “You haven’t got room in the cells!”

“We are prepared to be lenient and arrest only the instigators. We do not want to use force.”

“Then don’t,” muttered Jazz. Rewind didn’t miss the fact that xe had shifted so xe was standing between them and the loudspeaker.

“Aren’t you supposed to be protecting us?”

“Go back to your barracks and wait for Vos to attack. Go polish your guns!” The protestors started shouting insults at the State Guard, growing louder and more threatening. The front line started to move forward, and Rewind had an awful feeling that the Guard was getting what they wanted.

Jazz put a protective hand on Rewind’s shoulder and looked down at them. “I’m thinking you’ll want to get out of here before they break through.”

They took a deep breath to cool their racing engine, and nodded. “Yeah, I think I’ll, I think I’ll do that. Thanks for… everything, I guess.”

“I’ll want to see you later, mate. Call me tomorrow or something, lemme know you’re okay.”

Rewind nodded and left Jazz, pushing back through the crowd and away from the guns. It was difficult, and they wished they’d asked Jazz to come with them; as many Disposables as there were in the crowd, the street as a whole was surging forward to get at the Guard and they couldn’t get through. Rewind found themself making negative progress, no matter how they struggled, and they began to panic. The police were looking for them, specifically—and they were trapped.

“Please, let me through!” Rewind yelled, but nobody paid them any attention. They were all screaming at the Guard, some so loud their vocalizers were clipping, pulling Rewind with them. “Please! I need to get away!”

They could hear the sounds of metal on metal now, and of small ballistics. They hadn’t started using energy weapons yet, but it was only a matter of time. Rewind’s visor started to flash and fizz, spilling desperate light onto the armor around them. The fighting was getting closer.

Suddenly someone grabbed them by the shoulder, and their fuel pump almost stopped in terror. They spun around to find Blaster standing over them, looking agitated with darting eyes searching the crowd. “Rewind! Thank Primus I found you. We need to get out of here.”

“I’ve been trying,” Rewind gasped, clinging to Blaster’s hand. “I can’t get anywhere!”

“Find them!” someone was screaming—so close by. Rewind’s optics snapped back to Blaster’s face, pleading for her help.

“Frag it!” spat Blaster. “There’s no way you’ll get through this crowd, and I won’t make much headway either. Look, we might have a chance if you transform—I’m configured to carry data storage devices, right?”

They could only stare up at Blaster, terrified. “What… No, I…” But what choice did they have? They nodded reluctantly. “Okay.” They transformed, and Blaster caught them. Her chest compartment opened and she shoved Rewind hurriedly in. As it snapped shut behind them, they could hear muffled screams and feel Blaster rocking violently like she was trying to run.

Her internal mechanisms caught Rewind, steadied them, let them move with Blaster instead of rattling around inside her chest. They barely had a moment to be grateful before an internal plug was jamming itself into their data transfer port. It hurt a little, because Blaster’s movement meant the connection wasn’t steady, but more than that it was unexpected and invasive, on top of the petrifying fear Rewind was already trying to fight. Why would Blaster be trying to link up with them?

“Blaster, what are you doing?” asked Rewind. She didn’t seem to hear them—could she hear inside her own chest? Blaster’s plug made the connection, and Rewind gasped. Blaster was trying to take down the firewalls they’d thrown up, brute-forcing their security keys. “Stop it! _What are you doing?_ ” They could feel the shocks of Blaster’s feet pounding against the street surface, of her knocking into other people, as she took down their last encryption block. What if they’d been wrong about her? A sob threatened to escape Rewind’s vocalizer. How had everything gone so _wrong_?

Then suddenly Rewind was in Blaster’s head. They felt her surprise as she registered their presence, and then a wave of horror when she realized what had happened.

 _Rewind! I’m so sorry, I’m so, so, so sorry! It’s automatic, it didn’t occur to me to shut it down, I’m so sorry, I—_ She stopped when Rewind’s relief washed over her, counterpoint to the shaky laugh she couldn’t hear.

_I th-thought you’d done it on purpose. I thought you were looking for something, o-or, I don’t know. I w—I wasn’t…_

_That’s no excuse,_ she said. Self-blame colored her words and, well, it was deserved. _I was too scared to think straight, but I should’ve taken more care. I did it to protect you, and now look… I can pull out._

_No. You can’t hear me with your audioreceptors so this is the only way we can communicate while I’m in-inside you. Is… is there any way I can see what you’re seeing?_

_Ah—yes, absolutely, sorry! I’ll link you up._ Along with Blaster’s regret and lingering horror came visual and auditory input, and it was nothing like what Rewind was used to. Blaster saw and heard in high definition; Rewind could pick out dings in people’s armor, see individual motes of rust and smoke, distinguish sixteen different voices and what they were saying, feel even faint magnetic fields around them. She had so much parallel processing power! This was what it was like to be a bulk. They could even feel Blaster’s powerful arms and legs, her much larger engine growling fiercely not a foot from where Rewind lay folded.

Gradually Rewind managed to leave aside their wonder and focus on what was actually going on. Blaster was shoving her way through the crowd, away from the sounds of bullets and laser fire behind them. She was making for a narrow crevice between two buildings, where hopefully she would be able to get into one of them or find a place to hide until the police stopped looking for them.

 _How long do you think it’s going to be?_ Rewind asked. _Could be a whole day for all I know. I’ve never heard of a protest on this scale, and I’ve never heard of one going bad like this. Not to say it hasn’t happened. Who knows how long they’ll keep looking?_

Blaster reached the alley and darted inside, where a few less brave protestors were already hiding. She looked around speculatively, and then decided that the walls were close enough together for what she wanted to do: she braced one foot against each wall and started climbing. After eight or so storeys she found a balcony and clambered onto it, now out of sight of the street. The only way anyone would get a scope trained on her now was if they were halfway up the building on the other side of the alley.

She ejected Rewind after sending a data packet on the disconnection protocol. They transformed as the spring-loaded compartment spat them out, so that they were able to get a grip on the railing rather than take a hard fall. They raised their optics slowly to look at Blaster, filled with unease. She looked worried, and sad, and very tired.

“I can’t possibly apologize enough, Rewind,” she said, sinking down the wall into a sitting position. “I was careless, and I hurt you.”

Rewind couldn’t reply. They were still sorting out their senses. Their vision looked grainy and desaturated, and their audio input was suddenly muffled. They looked down at their fingers, closing them into loose fists to make sure who they belonged to. More than anything they felt suddenly small, weak, unprotected. “I… I’m all right. It’s just a lot to…” They looked up at Blaster again. She was looking at the ground, but it felt like her attention was still focused on Rewind. They tentatively lowered themself to her side, unable to stop themself from glancing at her face.

Finally, they gave in and curled up under her arm. After a moment her hand came to rest on Rewind’s waist, as they buried their face in her side. They felt… safe again, even as they were disgusted with themself. It was a weakness they shouldn’t allow. But they did, for now. Just for now.

—

They stayed there for a long time after Rewind recovered enough to put back on their armor of confidence. It was awkward, considering what had happened, but Rewind put most of their energy into trying to figure out how the protest had gone, and what had happened to Orion Pax. Blaster, of course, was pretty much the best person to have with you if you wanted to know what the news was saying.

“ _Orion Pax, the organizer of the march, stepped in when protestors started to get violent. A caring bot, gentle for all her size, Pax told reporters that she just didn’t want anyone to get hurt._ ”

“ _It was never our intent to harm the police,_ ” said Orion from Blaster’s knees. “ _I understand they are here to make sure no civilians are injured._ ”

“Come on,” said Rewind irritably, speaking over whatever pointless thing the reporter was saying. “Are you not even going to mention the fact that it was the Guard’s fault there was violence in the first place? Are you seriously too damn nice to remind the reporters which side is in the wrong here?”

Blaster grimaced. “Probably, yeah. Oh, listen to this.”

“ _The protestors have cleared the area, aided by police and the Iaconian State Guard. There have been few casualties, but almost eight thousand shanix of property damage in the area occupied by the marchers. Fifty-nine arrests have been made but authorities are still investigating…_ ”

Blaster turned the volume down sharply. “That’s just depressing. They’re going to charge us for the property damage, even though it was obviously the guys with the guns. Some of those people are going to have a really tough time raising bail, let alone money for fines.”

“It’s absolutely disgusting! Oh, but did you hear? Orion Pax is now the organizer of the march. We’re probably her publicists. I might as well be a fragging _data clerk_.”

“D’you really think they’d give a Disposable credit for an amazing thing like Shutdown? If you wanted them to think it was your doing, you shouldn’t’ve done it so well.”

Rewind laughed. “Thanks, Blaster. You’re probably the only one who could actually make sound like a compliment.”

“Y’know, I try. More importantly, we can probably come down now. I’m getting pretty sick of sitting up here wondering when whoever owns this balcony is gonna come home, and my pal says xe can take us whenever we’re ready.”

“Oof. I have a lot to do, to make it up to my roommates for not doing any paid work for a month. How much do you wanna bet nobody wants to give me a job now?” Rewind stood up and leaned over the railing to see if there was any way they’d be able to climb down on their own. Damn. No chance.

“I hear ya. I should be in jail, nobody wants me as the voice of their show any more. Dunno how I’m gonna eat.” Leaving aside that she actually expected to be able to eat. Rewind didn’t feel like pointing it out right now. “Sorry to break this to you, but I’ll probably have to carry you down.”

“I’m resigned to it,” said Rewind. “We’re staying with, er, Perceptor tonight, aren’t we?”

“Yeah…” Blaster offered a hand to help Rewind climb onto her shoulders. “I feel kinda bad about it, but xe did volunteer, I’ve got no wheels, and my hab’s almost two hundred kilometers away. I could stay in standby for a week.”

Rewind was silent on the way to the Academy, going over the day, retagging memories, analyzing. They _had_ had a big impact on Iacon, though they’d have to watch more news to find out what kind exactly. There had to be some newsfeeds that actually focused on what they were protesting about instead of just how inconvenient it was that people were fighting for basic Cybertronian rights while they were trying to get to work.

To be honest, at this point Rewind was mostly looking forward to some standby time too. It would be nice to be unconscious for a while. When they reached Perceptor’s building xe wasn’t there, but Blaster had the codes to xyr suite. When Blaster hailed xem, xe said xe’d be off shift in a few hours.

They entered Perceptor’s suite, spotless and sparsely furnished, and they both immediately lay down on the floor to sink quickly into standby. Rewind was going to have a very busy day tomorrow and they deserved twenty hours of standby.

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody has yet invented the concept of "carriers" who can house and transport smaller bots. Why would they? The only bots small enough to fit inside someone's root mode are Disposables, and nobody cares about keeping them safe. If there were a war, now, one that required covert reconnaissance and other such things...


	4. Chapter 4

“ _Hello, yes, what is it?_ ”

“ _Er, Rewind? Have I caught you at a bad time?_ ”

“ _Yes. But there is literally no good time to catch me so you might as well go ahead._ ” They continued their data sifting, only half listening to Pax. Now, if 8.9e4 shanix were going into equipment maintenance annually…

“ _Well. Um. I’ve been contacted by someone who’s interested in Shutdown 558 and the movement, only she seems to be under the impression that it was my idea._ ”

“ _Don’t know_ where _she might have heard_ that,” said Rewind. And 2.05e5 shanix for new equipment—

“ _She wants to meet with me to talk about activism, and, um, it would be really good if you could be there, because I don’t really know if I have the authority to speak on it…_ ”

“ _Orion, you do realize I’m working four jobs right now, and I literally have two hours per day when I’m not working?_ ”

“ _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll try and handle it myself._ ”

Rewind sighed. “ _No, you’re right, you don’t have the authority to speak on it. If it’s a reporter I swear on the moon I am not going to let you talk to her alone, I know what happens when you talk to reporters without backup._ ”

“ _Sorry._ ”

“ _I’m sending you my schedule. It doesn’t get bent, all right? Just ping me the time and place when you have it figured out. And do me a favor, make it someplace close to southern Iacon. Rewind out._ ” Ah—there was the inconsistency: almost five thousand shanix for tracking devices, when anybody with a working circuit in their head knew miners were fitted with the cheapest trackers known to Cybertronian-kind. “Accounting to Borehole, I’ve got it. Want me to send the data?”

Five hours later, as Rewind was sprinting for the waste treatment plant to make it on time for the evening shift without taking any roads on police beats, they got a ping from Orion Pax. Coordinates only half a kilometer from ICRC and half an hour after Rewind’s shift there ended. Say what you liked about Orion Pax, but she did know how to do a guy a favor. Rewind sent her a confirmation ping, and went on.

Two days later at 0400, Rewind was about ready to fall down on the spot. They hadn’t gotten any real standby time since the day before last, because of a lot of rubbish luck, and their archive was aching to be retagged—but an internal reminder told them they had a meeting to go to. This was going to require them to think straight for a little while, no matter how much they wanted to shut off their brain.

Thankfully, they managed to arrive at Orion’s coordinates a few minutes ahead of schedule; the meeting was apparently happening inside a warehouse full of acid-damaged furniture waiting to be refinished.

Orion was already there, pacing around a heap of ornately etched tables pocked with holes. She looked up when she heard Rewind’s footsteps, and some of the tension left her. “It’s good to see you, Rewind. I hope you’ve been well—I understand that you have not had much time to talk to me.”

“Ugh.” Rewind jumped onto a protruding table and sat down with a loud clang. “I still don’t have much time to talk to you. Sorry ‘bout that, I guess. I hope I don’t need to be super sharp for this, ‘cos frankly it’s going to take me a while to do any real thinking. Not much standby time, y’know.”

Orion sat too, directing an uncertain smile toward Rewind. “How much longer will you need to work… so much?”

“I promised Hi-Pass I’d pay half the rent after Shutdown, since I wasn’t doing any paying work while we were planning it. I’m, well, I’m not quite up to half, but he gets that I literally can’t do any more. I’m hoping he’ll forgive me after another month.”

She looked a little alarmed. “That seems a bit more harsh than necessary…”

“I owe him.” Rewind forced a shrug out of their tired shoulders (because oh, great, their joints were acting up from all the running they were doing now). “Now the three of them can save up some of their money, maybe buy something nice. Hey, tell you what, once I go back to normal working hours I’ll take you to a concert. Crashbang is going to be performing in this little crystal garden on the north end. It’s real nice, used to be an empty lot full of trash, but then the Groundbreaker crew fixed it up and started growing acanthite. It’s so beautiful, the whole ground is coated with this gorgeous azurite druse…” They glanced up at Orion, embarrassed. She was smiling. “Er, anyway, it’s a place everyone should see at least once.”

“I’d be delighted,” she said. “I’ve regretted that—” She stopped, listening.

Rewind could hear the footsteps too. Whoever was there must have heard them stop talking, because a voice called, “Orion Pax?”

“Yes, we’re over here.”

Another bulk came cautiously into view, one who made _Orion_ look a bit small. She was very obviously a miner; even if she hadn’t been liberally striped in retroreflective tape, the attachment ports for heavy machinery on her forearms would have given it away. Her eyes shifted between the two of them, though her face was blank. “I didn’t realize you’d be bringing… a friend.”

Orion stood like she thought she was being polite. “I’m very sorry. I should have mentioned. This is Rewind of Petrohex, the bot behind Shutdown 558. Rewind, this is Megatron of Tarn.”

“ ‘s good to meet you, Megatron,” said Rewind, dredging up as much politeness as they could muster. “It’s always, gratifying to find someone’s interested in the cause.” Just _look_ at that fairly big word they’d just used. Normally they wouldn’t be so impressed with themself but, operating on zero standby.

Megatron glanced at Rewind uncertainly, but addressed Orion. “Yes… I saw you on the news. You’re the face of the revolution… er, no matter whose idea it was. The work you’ve done is impressive, but you make it pretty easy for the media to manipulate your image.”

“Like I haven’t been telling her that for the last three months,” muttered Rewind.

“Er…” Megatron’s eyes flickered toward them again. “Well, yes. I have some experience in activism myself, and I thought perhaps you could use some tips on public speaking.”

“If we’re successful,” Rewind snarled, “she won’t _have_ to do any public speaking because newscasters won’t automatically assume the leader must be a bulk. If they interviewed _me_ , they’d find that my words are extremely unambiguous.”

“Well you can’t count on that,” said Megatron.

“I’d _like_ to be able to count on Orion directing attention to people whose voices are more relevant than hers.” They looked pointedly at Orion… and noticed she wasn’t looking very well. Her eyes were fixed on her knees, her massive shoulders were hunched inward, and she was picking feverishly at her finger joints as if something was stuck inside. “Orion? Are you okay?”

Orion raised her head jerkily to look at Rewind. “Sorry! Sorry. I…” Apparently unable to finish her sentence, she looked back down. Rewind was afraid she might pull one of her fingers off.

Rewind put a hand over Orion’s fidgeting fingers. “Okay, stop trying to pick your phalangeal joints apart and calm down. What’s wrong?”

Orion shook her head, but at least she was meeting Rewind’s visor.

“Do you want us to stop talking?”

She nodded almost imperceptibly.

Rewind sent a ping to Megatron on a short-range public frequency asking for a private call. After a few moments looking warily at Rewind, she accepted the encryption key and replied. “ _What’s wrong with her?_ ”

“ _I’ve never seen this before, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it happened at Shutdown. I think the arguing upsets her._ ”

“ _What? Why?_ ”

“ _I dunno. The point is she’s not really a great ‘face of the revolution.’ Partly ‘cos she gets really nervous, and partly ‘cos she keeps forgetting her duty as a bulk is to make sure people know what_ she _thinks isn’t important._ ”

Megatron wasn’t looking at them, which Rewind thought was a good thing. The less it looked like Rewind and Megatron were still arguing, the happier Orion would be. “ _But people_ will _listen to her. Disposable rhetoric is all well and good, but that won’t be any use until you’ve already accomplished your goal. I suppose I’ve not got it as bad because even Functionists still think of manual laborers as people, but when you’re looking for someone the public will listen to you’ve got to take what you can get._ ”

Reluctant as they were to admit it, Megatron was right. They _were_ being a bit unfair. “ _It’s just frustrating! She doesn’t say anything right. She doesn’t get to the most important things. She doesn’t… ah. I s’pose I’m making your point for you._ ”

“ _I find it interesting that as long as you’ve been working with Orion Pax you’ve never taken it upon yourself to educate her. A bot could think you were looking for an excuse not to let her do the talking._ ”

Rewind desperately wanted to make an angry comeback, but they couldn’t very well deny it. It was… Orion didn’t deserve to be the voice of the movement! Rewind was the one who was doing all the work, pretty much _all_ the work. But, they reminded themself, it didn’t matter who people listened to as long as they listened. “ _Fine. Go ahead and play teacher. I’ve not got time ‘cos I’m too busy working myself to death._ ” They sat back and folded their arms, staring determinedly at the opposite wall. They did _not_ have the emotional or intellectual processing power to deal with this right now.

After they’d had a good glare at the rusty warehouse wall, they turned to Orion Pax. She was sitting with quiet hands now, smoothing her pristine thumbs over each other. “Hey, Orion, I’m gonna go into standby, I really need it. If you could get me to the southwest-quadrant mine by 0600, I’d be just ridiculously grateful.”

“You work in a mine?” Megatron sounded amused.

“I work in a lot of places,” Rewind snapped. “It comes of needing to pay a lot of rent and making about half a shanix per shift. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to do a little defragging. Maybe I’ll see you later.” Before she could reply, they went into standby, setting an alarm to wake them at 0562. At least it _felt_ like they were getting the last word.

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cybertronians try very, very hard to make sure all their time and money is divided into powers of 2 and multiples thereof. Someone has probably considered changing the orbit of the planet so that a cycle can have exactly 512 days instead of 603.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for police brutality in this chapter. Nothing too graphic, but just in case.

“Go on, then, tell me how much you’ve got saved up.” It had to be quite a bit, because Rewind had never seen Eject happier, except when the State Games were on.

“All of us, all together, have got a hundred twenty shanix! Do you know what that means, Rewind?” He slung an arm around Rewind’s and Beamer’s shoulders, pulling them together. “That means we’re going drinking!”

Rewind laughed at Eject’s infectious delight. “Sure you don’t want to keep a little for repairs, or a new paintjob or… tickets to something?”

“Nah! Now I’ve done it I feel like I could do it again any time. I’m spending everything I’ve got on the best night we’ve ever had!”

“You blow your forty,” said Beamer, grinning as she knocked her helm into Eject’s. “I’m only spending twenty. Got my eye on this gorgeous lacquer stuff, if you let it dry over a fresh coat of paint nothing short of decimeter-circumference ballistics is gonna scratch it!”

“You do that, Beams, and I’ll get Rewind so drunk they can’t even transform.” He pounded on Rewind’s back so hard that they pitched forward and had to cling onto him to stay upright, pulling him and Beamer into a lopsided pile against the wall.

“Quit it, you glitch!” said Rewind, swiping at his helm. He ducked and backed into Beamer. “You’ll dent my plating and then I won’t be able to transform sober!”

Eject put up his fists to defend himself against Rewind, but they just leaned back against the wall with folded arms. “What d’you think Hi-Pass is gonna do with his?” asked Beamer, watching with interest. As Eject turned to answer, she tripped him.

“Oi!”

“To be honest, he’ll probably save the lot of it in case there’s an emergency,” said Rewind. Eject had sprung to his feet and was trying to hit Beamer over the helm. “He’s the most responsible person I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah—” Beamer ducked Eject’s grab and put a knee in his abdominal plating. He threw his helm forward to crack against hers. “Ow! I bet next time one of us gets hurt he donates it all for repairs and puts on that—hah!—that saintly face of his like _the things I do for love_.”

“Would you stand still and fight me like a decent person?” Eject tried to catch Beamer’s foot as she kicked him in the side, but he just ended up getting knocked into Rewind.

“Hah! You’re just mad ‘cos I’m winning!”

“Fiiiiiine. I yield. Just stop kicking me! I’ve got enough scuffs already.” He crossed his arms and leaned on Rewind, who put their arms around his waist in mock comfort.

“Poor Eject. Getting beaten up by a guy only fifty kilograms heavier than him.”

“More like seventy,” muttered Eject. “Why does a laser pointer need to be so big?”

“It’s so I can fit more lasers,” said Beamer. “D’you have a place in mind for drinks? Let’s not go to a bulk bar, okay?”

“They have way better drinks at bulk bars,” Eject said.

Rewind pushed him gently away from them. “They also have drunk bulks.”

“And who thinks he can take on bulks when he’s drunk? Is it Eject? Hmm? You can’t even take me on, gladiator.”

“Fine. We can go to Green Lightning or something.”

“The Hot Spot?” asked Beamer eagerly.

“As if! Their drinks are one part energon to one part coolant. I wanna get _hammered_.”

Thankfully, at that point Hi-Pass turned up, stopping the argument for the moment. He looked tired, but his eyes brightened when he saw his roommates waiting outside the hab building, and he broke into a jog for the last couple decameters. “Sorry I’m late, Flatline just really wanted to finish wiring… Well, you probably don’t care.” He glanced at Eject for emphasis.

“Sure don’t. What’s your favorite bar?”

“I’m kind of partial to the Hot Spot.”

Eject walked past him toward the street, throwing his arms in the air. “You actually like it _better_ ‘cos they dilute their drinks. Unbelievable. All my friends are wimps!”

“Well you’ve got your forty shanix,” said Beamer. “Why don’t you take your _cool_ friends drinking?”

“ ‘cos they don’t have any money,” muttered Eject. “I’d have to pay for their drinks.” He turned to Rewind. “You can still save us. The vote’s tied, if you want to go to Green Lightning—”

“We could argue all night and not end up going _anywhere_. I say we go to the Hot Spot. The drinks are cheaper there anyway.”

“Yeah, ‘cos they—”

Rewind was grateful when Beamer tackled Eject, because at least it shut him up for a while.

It turned out not to matter whether the drinks were diluted, because Eject had no trouble getting _incredibly_ overcharged. He was incredibly embarrassing, too. Beamer got giggly and wobbly, and Rewind wanted to lie down on someone, and of course Hi-Pass had only had one drink so he was the responsible one. He had to hug Eject’s arms so Eject couldn’t use them to punch people, but it also meant he got dragged around the street. Rewind and Beamer were draped over each other, walking on the side of the road, laughing as Eject and Hi-Pass staggered around like a Seeker with malfunctioning guidance systems.

“Looook at them,” said Beamer into Rewind’s audioreceptor. “They’re like, like, …”

“You’re too drunk for similes,” Rewind sniggered, banging their helm on Beamer’s as they tried to turn and look at her.

“You come up wi’ a better one, genius.”

“Okay, you didn’t even say anything, tha’ means anything I come up with is better.” Across the street there was a clang. Eject had probably fallen down, finally. When they turned to look, he _had_ fallen down—after knocking into a police bot. He looked like he was trying to steal their tires. Fear started to trickle through Rewind’s happy haze of overcharge.

“Hey,” said Officer Enormous, “you assaulting an officer of the law?”

“He’s not, he’s just drunk, I’m trying to get him home…” Hi-Pass dribbled excuses until the bot looked at him, and he went silent.

“I don’t know about you,” they said, apparently into their comm, “but I find this a little suspicious. Come over here.” To Eject, “Up against the wall, tiny, and empty your subspace.”

Beamer started struggling to get out of Rewind’s arms. It seemed like she wanted to go over and help. “No,” whispered Rewind. “We can’t help them! Let’s not do this.”

Eject wouldn’t, or couldn’t, cooperate fast enough, so the police bot pinned him to the wall by the throat. Hi-Pass pressed himself against the wall beside Eject. As the police bot did some kind of EM thing, emptying Eject’s subspace onto the ground, Rewind wished _they_ had had forty shanix to spend. They could have bought a camera. Someone needed to see this.

Another officer rolled up and transformed to look down at Hi-Pass and Eject. “Any trouble?”

“The data stick’s drunker than a Senator on payday, toolbox is too scared to try anything. I’d say detain ‘em. The data stick tried to attack me, the idiot.”

“Let go of me!” said Beamer. “I’m going over there and—”

“And getting arrested?” Rewind hissed. “All we can do is go to the cells with them, and maybe get our heads kicked in!”

“Someone’s got to keep an eye on them!”

“Someone’s got to post bail for them!”

Beamer shoved her credit chip into Rewind’s hands and ran across the street. Rewind backed further into the alley, hoping desperately not to be seen.

“Hey! You can’t arrest them! They haven’t done anything wrong! He wasn’t trying to attack you, he just wasn’t looking where he was going.”

“Well! Look who knows so much. You lookin’ for a fight too?”

“I wanna go along with you,” said Beamer. “Peacefully, to make sure you’re not screwing with them.”

Rewind could have said the words right along with officer #2: “Sounds like you want to spend the night in prison too.”

Beamer emptied her subspace onto the ground—two energon sticks Rewind had given her, and a small box of crystals she’d cut from public gardens. “Fine. I will. Don’t hurt anyone.”

“Like you’re gonna stop us.” Officer #1 snapped stasis cuffs onto Beamer’s wrists like she was some kind of dangerous criminal—Rewind had to stifle the angry growl of their engine—as their fellow police bot cuffed Eject and Hi-Pass. The first bot had a bigger alt mode, so the second threw all three Disposables inside them. He made sure to step on most of their possessions, which were still on the ground, then he transformed and the two of them drove off.

After several minutes, Rewind crept out of hiding to see if anything was salvageable. It should have been them standing up for their friends… except Rewind might not have been lucky enough to go to prison, if the police were still looking out for them. Then why did they feel so awful? They should have _done_  something. There was nothing they could have done.

Rewind frowned and picked up the cracked datapads from Eject’s and Hi-Pass’ subspace compartments. It was just… something. Just very something.

—

They left a message on Jazz’s personal frequency as soon as they got home, but xe didn’t answer until 0500 the next morning. Rewind had set their comm to wake them when xe replied, so they sat up in the dark to hear xyr message: “ _Sorry not awake when you commed! What can I do?_ ”

It took a moment to figure out why the room was so quiet—Rewind was used to hearing the soft hum of idling engines when they woke. It took another moment to connect the message with their roommates’ absence. “ _All three of my roommates were arrested last night, essentially for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and for obvious reasons I can’t go to the police station to post bail. Would you be willing to go for me?_ ”

Xe answered quickly: “ _About to go for morning drive, might take me near NES. Will want bail reimbursement. Names?_ ”

“ _Eject, Beamer, Hi-Pass. Comm me when you’ve got them. Thank you so much._ ”

“ _NP will do!_ ”

Rewind fretted silently for several minutes, then got up and started pacing. There had to be something useful they could do. They didn’t feel like doing anything useful. They wouldn’t be able to concentrate anyway. Who was Jazz? Someone who they’d met for a couple of minutes at Shutdown and thought xe was trustworthy. That could turn out to be the biggest and last mistake of Rewind’s life, if Jazz gave them away. Xe was a _police cadet_ , for Luna’s sake. How much more obvious could it be? But Rewind didn’t know anyone else who didn’t need to hide from the police who would understand.

They decided to wait outside. But first they’d need the money… They spent eight minutes trying to remember where Hi-Pass kept his stash, because they were sure Beamer’s credit chip wouldn’t be enough. They let out a long sigh when they found it under the pile of Beamer’s used paint canisters that for some reason she wouldn’t throw out.

They stood up and mentally put on their armor of polite distance, then left the suite. Jazz could meet them outside.

It was another sixteen or so minutes before they heard a car engine on the quiet streets. They stopped pacing and stood staring southward until Jazz came into view. Xe was built for speed, not size like the bots who had arrested Eject, Beamer, and Hi-Pass; so Rewind’s roommates were hanging onto a projection on xyr roof, whooping.

Jazz pulled up and all three slid onto the ground, then ran over to attack Rewind via hug.

“I was worried about you too,” said Rewind, with their voice muffled by Hi-Pass’ shoulder.

“We were more than worried about us!” Beamer clapped Rewind on the back. “We were pretty sure they don’t ever let you out unless someone bails you out, and we’d just rust in there.”

“I can’t believe you thought I wouldn’t find a way to get you out.”

“You coulda got arrested-slash-murdered,” said Eject. “We didn’t know.”

Behind them Jazz had transformed and was hanging back, a small smile on xyr face. “I hate to break up the hug party, but my shift starts in half an hour and I gotta leave. Could I bother you for bail money, Rewind?”

“Oh! Yes, sorry, I’d forgotten.” Rewind extracted themself and pulled Beamer’s and Hi-Pass’ credit chips out of their subspace. “Thank you so much for doing this for me, Jazz. And please remember: if you sell me out I will do everything in my power to make your life a miserable pit for the foreseeable future.”

“Woah. Wasn’t planning on it, but I’ll keep that in mind. See you around, guys!” Xe slipped smoothly into alt mode, and drove away.

When xe was out of sight Rewind turned to Beamer and Hi-Pass. “I’m sorry I had to use your money on this. It isn’t…”

Beamer elbowed Eject hard in one of his abdominal joins. “Don’t apologize, it’s Eject’s fault. He’s the one who decided to get absolutely hammered even though he knew it’d make him get into fights.”

“And we all let him,” Hi-Pass pointed out.

“Excuse me,” said Eject, “are you just _counting_ on me to not have self-control?”

“Gee, Eject, we thought you’d be happy to let someone else take the blame.”

“Well, yeah. But it’s different when you won’t even let me deny it myself!”

When they reached their hab suite, everyone sat down in the middle of the floor, without consulting each other. Beamer and Eject kept right on talking as the four of them huddled into a pile.

Rewind didn’t foresee any of them shutting up any time soon, so they lowered their audio sensitivity threshold and put their concentration into being with their roommates. Their thoughts wandered where their hands didn’t, and they started composing a ping to Orion Pax. “ _Remember that concert I told you about in the crystal garden? It’s tomorrow night. Do you still want to go? I’ll actually not be working for a change._ ”

Orion replied with an enthusiastic “ _I would love to go to the concert with you! Shall I come to your hab building at a certain time?_ ” before four minutes had passed.

“ _2832 all right with you? The concert should end before 3100._ ”

“ _2832 is fine. I will see you then._ ”

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might be wondering how Rewind is just walking around and having jobs, considering that they are wanted by the police. Well, there aren't THAT many police, despite Iacon's recent rise in militarization--a city-state has a LOT of area to cover-- and Rewind has found out where they will be at what times. As for finding jobs, there are always people who don't care who you are as long as you'll work for cheap.


	6. Chapter 6

Orion Pax showed up outside the hab building at exactly 2832, and when Rewind came down to meet her they saw that she was freshly polished. She looked like she was going to an opera.

“You didn’t have to get all shined up,” said Rewind, amused, when they were within speaking distance. “It’s not a… formal event.”

“Ah. Sorry. I’ve never been to an informal concert.” Orion transformed, probably so she could hide her abashed expression. “…It’s rather far away. Would you like to ride?”

Rewind got into her. They didn’t point out that she would stick out like a sparking line, because she was already nervous. Instead they patted her dashboard and said, “Do you get good enough quality broadcast radio to listen to music on the way?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I don’t know any frequencies that aren’t mainstream music, though.”

“Lemme help you out with that,” said Rewind. They transmitted their archive of music stations, along with some underground political stations. “The third one on this list is one of my favorites.” Orion tuned to the station they’d indicated, and 8-Track’s “Seething Moon” filled her cab.

“So, how’s it going with Megatron?”

“Oh! Er… well? She says I’m improving, though I can’t really see it. She wants me to organize another big protest instead of the little ones that have been going on—I don’t think she really got that it was you who were in charge of the first one—er. She proposed a protest for more general rights. Not Disposables. It’s natural, I suppose, seeing as she’s got more experience with Functionism. Um.”

“Well, I’m not mad at _you_ , Orion. Obviously it wasn’t your idea. You don’t need to be nervous.”

Orion’s biolights flushed from pale orange to a grey tinged with energon blue and she sped up slightly. Aw. She _was_ nervous about what Rewind thought of her.

“It would be really nice if we could get her to stand with us, instead of just trying to make you her pet demagogue. Like if miners and Disposables united… We do have a lot of the same grievances. Can you tell Megatron I want to talk to her? Now that I’ve made up my debt to Hi-Pass and the rest, I want to keep the movement going. Momentum is really important here and… well, nobody else started anything. We need to build a network, find more people who feel the same as us, and Megatron might be a good place to start. I also got a few hailing frequencies at Shutdown, so I think I’ll start calling. Have you talked to Blaster since then?”

“No… I don’t know her very well.”

“Hm. I tried to call her to make sure she was able to find work, but she never answered. I’m worried about her…” Rewind found their fingers tapping against their legs. Fretting. Not helpful.

“I can try and call Blaster, then, if you want to talk to Megatron. I _am_ eager to make this information more widely available—that is, your point of view, or…”

“Just like an archivist,” said Rewind fondly. Before Orion could reply they clarified: “I feel exactly the same. Nothing’s more important than finding out the truth and making sure people understand it as it is. That’s kind of the problem, really, people often understand the truth in this imperfect way that allows them to continue living however they want to. They don’t get _emotional_ truth, universal _Cybertronian_ truth…”

They waxed poetic all the way to the crystal garden, where, predictably, everyone who was eight minutes early was alarmed by the appearance of an armored bulk in vehicle mode. Rewind hopped quickly out of Orion to start being friendly.

But when Orion transformed, someone said, “Hey! You were at the big protest a couple months ago! I saw you on the news!”

“Really? That was you?”

“Aw, whatever, there aren’t any bulks who _really_ care.”

“Oh yeah?” said Rewind. “Then why were there so many at Shutdown? It’s not like they’d earn points with the _government_ for supporting us.”

“Haven’t you heard, Rewind? Caring about Disposables is cool now.”

Luckily, at that point Crashbang arrived, and the guy who’d been arguing with Rewind was drowned out by cheers. They didn’t actually know who she was, but she must have been paying enough attention to Shutdown to have heard of Rewind.

“Hey, guys!” called Pyrotech. “You ready to rock?” The crowd cheered again, drawing in around the stage. “Well, we’re not! We have to set up some sound equipment. Give her a hand folks—Airburst!” The brilliantly copper green broadcaster vaulted onto the stage and started waving as she hooked up to the mixing platform.

Firecracker followed her up, grinning her trademark filthy grin through thick makeup, gold and some kind of deep purple oxide she’d electroplated on in bold geometric blocks. “Helloooooo north end. You guys are lookin’ good tonight. Don’t worry, me and Strobe can keep you happy ‘til Pyro’s cabled in. Lemme tell you ‘bout the craziest slag that happened on the way here…” She slung her arm around the white bot next to her, whose gleaming retroreflective paint threw back the light from yellow, red, and blue optics in the crowd. Wow, did Rewind ever want some of that. Nobody’d be able to ignore them ever again…

“They’re very glamorous,” said Orion, wide-eyed. She was sitting curled up on the ground so that her head barely came above the tallest bots’ helms. Rewind leaned against the wheels on her shins.

“Aren’t they, though? They’re definitely the hottest Disposable group this side of the equator. I should see if I can get them to help me out with campaigning—they travel around a lot.”

“Could you just _talk_ to them?” Orion whispered.

Rewind turned to look at her, amused. “They’ve probably heard of me, Orion. We’re kind of a big deal, remember?”

“Okay, okay, _now_ we’re ready to rock. Let’s start off with a classic. Hit it, Strobe.” As soon as the audience recognized the percussion line of “Spark and Cog” they roared so loud that Crashbang was totally drowned out. Above the noise Firecracker’s scream tore through the night like a klaxon. “AAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY YOU WERE THE SECOND MOON! But you _burned_ … oh, like a _star_.” Orion was vibrating subtly with tension against Rewind’s back. When they glanced back at her, they saw that her face was totally blank, like she was devoting all her processing power to archiving sensory data.

The next song was one from last cycle, a remix of a Golden Age opera about a bloody inter-city conflict—the original was very gears-and-glory, but Airburst’s feedback/distortion loop turned the photon cannons and war songs into so much barely decipherable noise. Only the vocals came through, with Pyrotech and Firecracker singing trio over them. After that they did another old favorite, a bi-tone call-and-response with the audience that gained more than anything from Strobe’s complex percussional counterpoint. Rewind’s favorite was a new track that sampled an alien transmission picked up by the Baird Observatory in Kalis, which was in a fascinating language that seemed to be based on the pitch, timbre, and timing of hollow hooting noises like wind blowing over cold smokestacks. The concert ended with a modified version of a folk song from the Neutral Territories, which the audience loved. Rewind was pretty happy about Pyrotech’s electro-bass part, themself; inasmuch as music theory was their thing, it was _such_ an appropriate addition. They revved their engine loudly along with everyone else in the crowd, but Orion’s was almost as loud as the whole lot of them.

“Thank you! Thank you! Woah, someone’s _extra_ excited tonight!” Firecracker pointed down at Orion, and then seemed to process who she was looking at. “Oh, wow, bulk, you’re a ways from home.”

Orion seemed to be motionless with fear, so Rewind waved up at the stage. “It’s cool, she’s with me. Thought I’d try to get a little culture in her.”

Firecracker laughed. “Rewind of Petrohex, right? Then this must be Orion Pax. Hey guys, nice work ticking off the government!” It sounded like she was being half sarcastic and half sincerely admiring, which was about what you could expect from Firecracker.

“We try. You wouldn’t want to help us, would you? Spread the news, sort of thing?”

“Can we stop shouting?” asked Airburst. “Most of these people probably have stuff to do. Thanks for coming out, guys! We love you all!” She made a little finger gun in Rewind’s direction before hopping off the stage to grasp hands with the people in the front rows.

Rewind and Orion hung around until most of the crowd had gone, at which point Pyrotech and Strobe came over. Close to, Strobe was frankly intimidating—her visor was immobile and unexpressive, her armor spotless, and her movements abnormally graceful. She nodded at Rewind, as Pyrotech offered a hand and a smile in greeting. “So you want us to tell people… what? To join your movement?” Pyrotech wasn’t exactly the most approachable herself, tall for a Disposable, with eyes that seemed to focus on the side of Rewind’s helm.

Rewind glanced down at their feet. “Well, no, ideally you’d be as invested as I am, and do whatever you think would be most helpful or interesting for you. I just want… I want a lot of people to hear about it, yeah, but if they were high-profile people like you, and if everyone could see that you care…” What were they even trying to say? They were beginning to regret approaching this so casually. You couldn’t just _assume_ things would work themselves out, you couldn’t just _improvise_.

“Er, if I may, I think what Rewind means to say—” Strobe and Pyrotech turned to look at Orion, and she stumbled over her words. “Th-that is, um. We care about each individual member, and potential member, of our movement, and yes, you could help us get the word out. But it’s, it’s also that we think it’s a cause worth championing, and we think you’re the type of people who would be interested in equality on its own merits.”

Pyrotech smiled faintly. “Yeah, we try to be pretty anti-establishment, in general. What can _we_ do for _you_? Since you’re offering, I dunno, connections, community, opportunities to change the world, all that good stuff.”

“Be bold,” said Rewind. “Anyone can write a song about family or loss, but it takes courage to speak up about what they’re doing to us. And the arts are a great platform for that, ‘cos if you make it catchy enough people will end up listening whether they already cared or not. Might even make it all the way up to the bulks. Just a suggestion: think about what you make into music, and make sure it’s something that’s important to you.”

Strobe very suddenly slid her hand behind Rewind’s head and curled it around their neck. “I like your style,” she said in a thick Vosene accent. “We could higher prioritize anger, sure.”

“Y’know, that could be an interesting theme for our next collection,” said Pyrotech, as Strobe withdrew her hand. “I can really see it making a cohesive concept. Come on, I want to see what Firecracker and Airburst think. You two—come see us next time we’re in Iacon! Here’s my hailing frequency, just in case.” She grinned back at them and left with her arm hooked through Strobe’s.

Rewind and Orion stayed still for a moment, and then Rewind said, “Wow. Those guys are intense.”

“Is that what all famous people are like?” whispered Orion.

Rewind laughed. “I hope not. I’d like to be famous someday.”

“Really? I wouldn’t…”

“Orion.” Rewind leaned over the top of Orion’s knee to make a face at her. “If you didn’t want to be famous you probably shouldn’t have signed up to be the face of the revolution.”

“Oh, er, no, that’s, I think that’s different.”

“Let’s go, pal, I’ve got roommates to keep out of trouble. Nice networking, by the way! I think you _have_ been learning something with Megatron.”

“You should ask her,” Orion mumbled.

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes about the picture! On the left you can see Strobe playing a hank drum, which is a derivative of a hang drum made from a propane tank. Look them up, the operating principle is really cool! Strobe has probably padded her fingers for a better tone. Pyrotech is using motion-sensing gloves to play some kind of synth that's hooked into the speakers, and Firecracker is singing into a microphone wired into her pinky. 
> 
> In the background you can see the silver acanthite Rewind mentioned a couple chapters ago--it doesn't really grow this big, but it DOES actually look like that! Lastly, I made up an entirely new Cybertronian script for Punk As Hell, because ?????? Crashbang is using an organic-looking variation on the normally rectilinear script, because that's Punk. It just says Crash Bang, that's kind of their band logo.
> 
> HAHA YES I get way too into sharing my worldbuilding. I just adore coming up with inconsequential headcanons for the mundane quotidian workings of Cybertron.


	7. Chapter 7

“How’s Orion doing?”

“You’ve seen her more recently than I have,” said Megatron, leaning against the wall. Her arms were folded, Rewind noted, in contrast to her open body language when Orion had been there.

“I know how she’s doing with regard to archiving and listening to music, which is great, but I wouldn’t mind a rundown of how her public speaking’s going.”

“Mm. Yes. She is improving, if a bit slowly. Still needs to build more confidence, but she has a good grasp of rhetoric.”

“I suppose it’s too much to ask that you’ve also talked to her about making way for other people’s voices when they know better than her?” Rewind hopped up to sit on a cracked table.

“You’re extremely antagonistic, aren’t you?”

Rewind had to restrain themself from making a comment about how that was a big word for a miner, because that would have been disgustingly classist as well as unproductive. “I’ll take that as a no. Look, Megatron, I’m really seriously not here to argue with you. I think we’d be powerful allies if we could make room for everyone’s concerns. Laborers and Disposables make up a _huge_ fraction of the population, and together we could push through real, important change. Also, I think you’re being just as antagonistic as me, so we should both stop.”

“Point taken,” said Megatron. “I haven’t a lot of experience working with Disposables, as they don’t often come down into the mines.” Rewind noted she didn’t shy away from the word the way Orion did. “Other people’s problems have never been much of a concern for me. I’ve had enough of my own.”

“If you’re gonna be an activist you’ve sort of got to be concerned about other people. You don’t just stand for yourself.”

 “I’m _not_ just standing for myself. I’m standing for everyone who has suffered the way I have, every laborer who’s had their wages cut because their foreman cares more about skimming than the bots that work under them. Every bot who’s been beaten for refusing to work when the mine is saturated with explosive gas, for making a damned _joke_ , for every bot who can’t work and starves to death. I’m standing for everyone whose first language is violence because that’s the only language they want us to _understand_.”

Her engine had started to rumble, growing louder as she spoke until Rewind could barely hear her words. She looked like she wanted to say more, but couldn’t articulate it. Rewind stared up at her. “You’re… wow. Those are extremely good points but right now I’m mostly impressed by your speaking.”

Megatron turned her eyes to the floor. “Yes. Well. I’ve written enough about it.”

“D’you do essays? Where can I find them?”

She looked up at Rewind. “You’re awfully interested.”

“Yes, I am, because I want to learn more about how laborers and Disposables can work together, and not incidentally I’d like to know what they’re _doing_ to laborers. D’you not expect anyone to read your essays? That’s what they’re _for_.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Megatron muttered.

“Seriously? Nobody reads them?”

“I’m not exactly respectable, in case you haven’t noticed. Even the other miners think I’m a bit of a freak, like wanting better working conditions is a plague they might catch.” If nobody listened to Megatron, that might explain why she was so desperate to get Orion interested in lobbying for her. If Orion happened to go to Tarn, and happened to make a few speeches while she was there…

After a few seconds of silence, Megatron sent an address over the private connection they’d set up the first time they met. Rewind didn’t have the bandwidth to get any of the data now, but they could see the titles. It was pretty impressive, actually—if anyone could appreciate curated collections of knowledge it was Rewind, and they were itching to read this one.

“Thank you,” they said. “I’ll read these when I get home, and I’ll share them with other people who’ll want to.”

“…Yes. Well. As much as I appreciate the promotion, I’d also like to talk about the next event we’re planning, if you don’t mind. Actually, I thought Orion Pax was going to be here.”

“You can’t always make your plans with the same person,” said Rewind. It was irritating for no reason they could easily articulate, but probably something to do with anti-Disposable prejudice. “You’ve got to learn to work on teams. Anyway, Orion doesn’t know much about event planning, I did all the work for Shutdown. Splitting processor aches for weeks, and I couldn’t hold down a job.”

“Hm.” Megatron sounded at least mildly impressed. She’d started chewing on her lip with sharp teeth, probably something she did a lot given the healing and rusty scars around her mouth. “I’ll grant you that. Have you got any ideas that will cause massive inconvenience to this city?”

“Have you? I’ve been thinking about how to advertise now that Blaster’s disappeared. I guess airing ads on public radio wouldn’t work twice, anyway. And word of mouth might not cut it.”

“Word of mouth, maybe not… Tell me, Rewind, are Disposables as enthusiastic about leaving their mark on public buildings as miners are?”

Rewind stared at her for a moment, and then they got it. “You’re saying we should use graffiti? That’s _brilliant_ , that’s absolutely brilliant! If we make it pretty enough nobody will even notice it’s not normal graffiti, except the bots who take the time to look. Ooh, we’ll have to recruit some artists…” Rewind was smiling delightedly now, hands clasped in front of them. “I’ve got a couple of their frequencies already, but I bet we can meet more of them!”

“Er, why do we need to recruit professionals? We could do it ourselves.”

“I’ve done a bit of research on this, and it’s actually quite difficult to get spray paint to look good. People are more likely to pay attention if it’s professionally done—they’ll want to come and take pictures and tell their friends about it already, even beside the fact that it’s got a secret message.”

“Hm. I suppose so. I’ll let you work that out, since you seem so excited. But there’s still the matter of what we should actually do.”

“Would it be absolutely terrible if we did the same thing again? Or just, walked around somewhere being noticeable? If we didn’t block off a major road it’s possible we’d have less chance of being attacked by the State Guard.”

“Publicity on that front was actually very interesting,” said Megatron. “Of course the news made it sound like you were ransacking shops, but almost everyone I’ve talked to thinks the Guard are to blame. A large chunk of the public likes you more now that you’ve gotten beaten and arrested for standing up for yourselves.”

Rewind narrowed their visor. “Okay, it _sounds_ like you’re suggesting a bunch of us should get beaten up and arrested on purpose to make a point. Do I have to remind you how not fun that is?”

“No,” growled Megatron, “you don’t need to remind me of how little fun it is. I’ve done both far more than you. And I’m not saying we should _try_ to get arrested. I’m saying that we need to accept that we might, and that the strength of our resolve is what will win us this war.”

Rewind subsided. “Yeah. That seems fair. Sorry, I get a little touchy given there’s currently an unofficial warrant out for my head.” They _did_ mean that sincerely, but it was hard to make it sound like anything other than a sarcastic dig. “Look, we’ve had a good talk but I’ve got to go. Can we exchange frequencies for more planning?”

“Yes, that’d be fine.” Rewind thought she looked a little relieved. Or it could just be their own eagerness to get out of this weird conversation. “Here’s mine. I’ll be in touch once I’ve talked to a few people and looked at routes. It’ll serve me well to learn Iacon better, anyway.”

Rewind pinged her and waited for the return ping before they threw a salute and hopped down off the table they’d been sitting on. “Pleasure doing business with you,” they said, and left the warehouse.

“ ’s a bit harrowing,” they muttered as they sped up into a jog. “Megatron’s awfully serious. ‘The strength of our resolve…!’  ”

As Rewind reached the end of 219th Street South they got a ping from Orion Pax. “ _I received a cryptic message and I would rather discuss it in person. Is my hab building out of your way?_ ”

“ _Nope, on my way home from the south end now. I can be there in half an hour._ ”

“ _Thank you._ ”

Rewind turned eastward and started running a little faster. That was interesting, wasn’t it? Secret messages already, and they were barely into the revolution at all. That thought made them laugh. The Revolution. Secret messages. They did _not_ want to live in one of those spy movies Beamer was into.

When they reached the hab building, Orion was waiting out front, and she quickly led them to her suite. When the door was shut and the two of them were standing in her front room, she started playing audio. At first there was a series of weird screechy noises at seemingly random intervals, and then distorted pop music started playing. It stopped, and though Rewind waited there were just a few seconds of static, and then Orion’s speakers clicked off.

“Where did that _come_ from?” asked Rewind, after a long pause.

“The origin code is for a public mid-range transmitter in Kalis.”

“Do you know anyone in Kalis?” Orion shook her head. “Then… hmm. Are you sure it’s a message, and not just someone messing around?”

“Doesn’t it seem like a code? The noises at the beginning of the transmission can’t be produced naturally. They can only be synthesized—as far as I know—by the audio software of sentient Cybertronians.”

“You know, that’s true. Here, I’ll see if I can track down some codebreakers, and can you find an audio library to search for the noises and the song?”

“Absolutely. Thank you for coming by on such short notice. Ping me if you find anything?”

“You got it.”

— 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Megatron also writes poetry, but it'll take a while before she trusts anyone enough to show it to them.


	8. Chapter 8

It turned out that most of the codebreakers near Iacon worked for a fee that Orion couldn’t afford, so Rewind figured they’d have to trade on her reputation, such that it was. And there was one place they thought they could find a group of people with encryption experience and as little love for Functionists as Rewind: UNH Uraya’s Academy of Advanced Technology.

Rewind was really starting to appreciate having time off again. It meant they could get out of Iacon and meet new people—specifically, new people who needed to know that Rewind was instrumental to the Disposable rights movement. And if all went well they might gain some allies.

On the drive there, they listened to some more of Crashbang’s music on low volume while Rewind filled Orion in.

“So these guys are an odd bunch. They’ve got nothing in common except that they’ve all been awarded the Soundwave Scholarship for Excellence, which is almost as cryptic as our message from Kalis. There’s a list of people who’ve received it but I can’t find the selection criteria anywhere on the data network. Not even on the application! It just has Senator Soundwave’s UNHU frequency and says to contact her if you think you’re eligible.”

“Then why do you think they can help us?”

“Well. I’ve heard rumors on the network that these guys—Outliers, they call them—got sponsored by Soundwave to go to school because they have abilities other Cybertronians don’t have. Like the kind of stuff you might call magic, if you believed in magic. People on the network are really _unnecessarily_ cagey, but more than one said we should try talking to the Outliers for decryption stuff. They even said they looked at some policies that would make it extra hard for Outliers to get jobs because their function doesn’t fit with their form or some dross. So, they might not be too fond of Functionists.”

“How are we going to find them?” asked Orion, braking very gently to a stop at a busy cross-street. One thing Rewind really appreciated about her was her careful driving.

“This is actually really interesting—Soundwave teaches one class at the Academy. It’s just called ‘Intensive Study,’ it hasn’t got any course description, and everyone in it is an Outlier. And we’re going pay it a visit! It’s especially interesting because this makes Soundwave, like, the _only_ person ever to have an actual job while serving on the Senate.”

“That is interesting,” Orion murmured.

Most of the drive ended up just being sightseeing—neither of them had been very far into Uraya before—and commentating on the music. Orion was pretty good at critical analysis, and she was fun to talk to. Rewind couldn’t think of very many people they’d rather spend an eight-hour drive with. Still, they were glad to get out of her cab when they finally pulled up outside UNHU. It had been warmer than they liked, among other things.

It was actually a really nice place; there were large patches of crystal between the buildings, and it didn’t feel as canyon-like as the Iacon campus because the buildings weren’t as tall. Uraya must have more space because basically the whole city was downtown, where Iacon packed most of its important buildings into an area only a few dozen miles long. There was also a distinctive and lovely architectural style—they checked the data network quickly—resulting from the fact that UNHU was newer by almost two million years.

Orion transformed and stretched to get her joints ready to move in root mode, then looked to Rewind. Rewind pulled up a map of the campus over one of their optics. “Okay, so it looks like there are three Academy buildings… over there. We want building 66, room 309.”

When they got to the right room, Orion peered in through the window before knocking. “What are they doing in there?” Rewind asked.

“It looks like they’re just chatting,” said Orion uncertainly. “Soundwave is blue and gold, right? She’s not at the front of the room, she’s just sitting on a table talking to a group of students.”

“That makes it a little less awkward to interrupt, then,” said Rewind, and knocked.

“Soundwave is motioning for us to come in, I think.” Orion hesitated for another moment but opened the door. “Er, hi, is this ‘Intensive Study’?” Rewind sometimes wished they had eyes, because Orion consistently made them want to roll their eyes. Of _course_ it was, Soundwave only had one class.

“It is,” said Soundwave. She had the most beautiful voice Rewind had ever heard. Her vocalizer must have been specially upgraded, for all that she had neither eyes nor face, which was extremely rare for a high-caste bot. Each syllable was layered with strong harmonic overtones so that when she spoke it almost sounded like she was singing. No wonder she was a Senator; Rewind would pay her that absolutely ludicrous salary to speak at length. “Do you need something?”

“We w. We came to ask for some help,” said Rewind, trying to suppress a stammer. “We’ve had what we think is an encoded message, but we’re not exactly rich. So we were, uh, hoping we could get someone here to decrypt it for free.”

“A secret message?” said one of the bots standing near Soundwave. “You must not get a lot of those, or you’d have your own decrypter!” He was small, gray and red, and he leaned forward expressively. “We haven’t got one either. What d’you want us for?”

“Oh…” Rewind’s gaze fell. “I’d heard on the data network that you could be helpful.”

“We might still be helpful,” said Soundwave. “If we choose.”

“We were actually thinking maybe you’d want to help, once you knew why we need it. We think the message might be relevant to our work in civil rights.”

“Windcharger!” the bot next to the gray and red one elbowed him excitedly. “These are the Iaconian protest guys! Rising Piston and Rework, or something! It was all over the news, have you forgotten? Disposable rights! That’s why the little guy is here!” Xe paused, then glanced down at Rewind and grimaced, like xe’d just realized how rude that was. “I mean. Sorry. I’m really sorry. I’d be happy to take a look at it for you.”

“Didn’t Windcharger say none of you knows decryption?”

“I can learn easily,” said the bot. “I’m Skids, by the way.” Xe hopped off the table and extended a hand to Rewind like xe was trying to make up for xyr faux pas. “My thing is super-fast learning. I’ve never tried decryption but I’d be delighted to give it a go. Especially for a good cause!”

Rewind took xyr hand—xe executed a flawless ‘contrition/deference’ clasp, and Rewind, smiling, returned ‘accepted.’ “How long will it take you?”

“Four days, tops,” said Skids, offering xyr hand now to Orion. Xe was a bit arrogant, which Rewind found kind of endearing. “Give me your frequency and I’ll ping you when I’ve got it.”

“Fantastic.” Rewind looked up at Orion. “Should we bring Megatron? It might be important enough that she’ll want to hear it too.”

“Who’s Megatron?” asked Windcharger, before Orion could reply.

“She’s teaching me public speaking,” said Orion softly. “She’s a miner. We’re hoping to add laborers to our movement, because they’re just as often exploited as,” that fractional pause again, “Disposables.”

“Brilliant, sure!” said Skids. A moment later xe turned to Soundwave. “That is, if it’s okay with you?”

Soundwave nodded (Rewind was a little disappointed that she didn’t speak). Skids and Rewind exchanged hailing frequencies, and Windcharger introduced the other Outliers. There were only eight of them—Rewind supposed the others they’d seen on the scholarship list must have graduated. It was interesting what was considered an outlying ability, though; two were electromagnetic force fields of different kinds, one was some sort of interference that affected digital objects, one was just enhanced sensory power, another produced incredibly loud noises through some kind of echo chamber, one _said_ she could teleport (which sounded like rubbish to Rewind), and the last had an absolute memory that would never suffer from eidetic decay. Rewind thought that last one was a bit strange—didn’t nearly all Cybertronians have that? But they didn’t say anything.

Instead they asked: “Are there any Disposable Outliers, or Outliers from the manual laborer classes?”

Every bot in the room looked to Soundwave. Slowly, she said, “If there are, I have never met any.” But she must have understood the spirit of the question because she continued: “Theoretically, there should be. But none has ever applied to UNHU.”

“And the reasons for that are obvious,” said Rewind. “Any impulse we might have to call ourselves special gets crushed out of us in the first decade.”

“Also,” said Skids, “going to school costs time and money, which you probably haven’t got if you need to work 180-hour weeks just to get by.” Xe shifted position, turning to face Rewind more squarely. “Hey, you said you’re having another protest, right? Will you ping me when you know when it is? I’d like to come.”

“Oh, Skids,” said Glitch, a soft-spoken bot with an extremely unfortunate nickname and the single eye of an empurata victim.  “Will you pass on the word to me?”

Rewind grinned. “And make sure you tell alllll your friends who might want to support us. Unless they’re snitches.”

—

Rewind and Orion ended up agreeing that Megatron should at least be aware that they’d gotten a secret message, but Rewind was surprised that she actually wanted to come along. Four days after their meeting, Rewind got an enthusiastic ping from Skids (“ _You’ll be glad to hear this!_ ”) and gathered Orion and Megatron for a trip the next day. Megatron looked incredibly out of place on the clean streets of Uraya, where the only heavy industry was energon refining.

They walked into Intensive Study again, and the students tried to gather around Megatron without being too obvious about their interest. Most of them had probably never met a miner. Soundwave even clasped Megatron’s hand, which was _weird_ because she hadn’t even greeted Rewind and Orion formally.

After about four minutes, Skids couldn’t contain xyrself any longer, and shepherded them to a small private study room down the hall. Xe locked the door and then said, “The encryption is actually amazing and really complicated, I’d think the person who sent this paid someone to do it. The message is actually encoded in the differences from the original song, and the key is in the bit at the beginning with the screeching noises! The information density is incredibly high. Sorry, I’ll play it for you.” Xe sat down and started audio playback, and Blaster’s voice filled the room.

“ _Couple months ago I got jumped at my hab by police, barely gave them the slip with a little help. Polyhex and Iacon governments always were close, we’ve got trade agreements like anything. Anyway I won’t bore you with the details but I escaped to Kalis, which would be why I’m sending you a message from there. I think the Southern Hemisphere might be the only really safe place, so stay on guard. Then again, I was always the best target since Pax is the cute one and they don’t think Rewind matters. Hope you guys are all right! You should be able to synthesize a reply using this code… damn, I hope you can even decode this, it’s not exactly in either of your skillsets… Well, I’m sending this because I don’t want you to worry, and because it’ll be useful to have a code established if you ever need me. Hope to hear from you soon! Blaster out._ ”

Orion broke the silence first. “Thank goodness she’s all right. I almost didn’t think it was a real message. But it is, Blaster really wanted to let us know she’s all right. I wonder why it took her so long to send it, though.”

“Probably she was inventing this encryption,” said Skids. “She could work for the military as a comms officer, she’s that good.”

“Was military-grade encryption really necessary?” asked Megatron. She looked unimpressed.

“Come on!” said Rewind. “She’s obviously terrified for her life! She wouldn’t want to broadcast her coordinates to the IPD. Plus, like she said, having an unconventional private encryption could be really useful.”

“Hm.”

“This is so exciting,” said Skids in a low voice. “Secret messages, thugs coming after political activists—”

Megatron fixed xem with a cold stare.

“Er, right. Thugs trying to murder your friends is obviously not exciting in a good way. It just doesn’t seem _real_. I’ve been looking at the history of activism in my spare time—Dominus Ambus, the Secessionists, the fall of Ratioism, that sort of thing—and the histories never mention this kind of stuff! You’d think they would, ‘cos it would make the previous regimes, now that they turned out to be wrong, look like really bad guys.”

“That _is_ weird,” Rewind murmured. “There’s got to’ve been just as much corruption and brutality every time the status quo gets challenged in a big way. But it doesn’t get written down…”

“I’ll do some research,” said Skids cheerfully. “But here’s a more important question: Do you know about scheduling for the protest yet?”

Rewind looked to Megatron, who shifted and made a small noise. “Ah. Yes. We’re thinking of having it on the 600th.”

“That’s good,” said Rewind, “that should give us enough time to talk to plenty of artists. Why don’t we have it on New Cycle’s, though? People will be about, plus it’s really symbolic.”

“If it’s on New Cycle’s I won’t be able to go,” said Megatron, and left it at that.

“Do you know anything about art, Skids?” asked Orion.

Skids grinned. “You’ve got my number, huh? I’d love to learn. What’s going on with that?”

“Viral advertising!” said Rewind. “Graffiti to advertise the protest only to the kinds of people we want to be there. More secret messages, if you like. We’re hoping to recruit muralists and taggers and everyone else competent with an aerosol can to help us get more coverage.  It’s too bad Blaster can’t be here, I bet she knows loads of people in Polyhex.”

“We could still ask her,” said Skids. “I’m itching to try encrypting something with her code. Er, you don’t actually need me, I can just tell you the key, but I’d love to be part of this.” Xyr eyes were shining brightly; xe looked ecstatic about the possibility.

“We’d love to have you,” said Orion with a tiny smile, apparently having come to the same conclusion Rewind had.

“Yeah! And I’ll send you my mockup of the ad, you can look at it once you’ve got some art in that excellent helm of yours.”

“Brilliant,” said Skids fervently. “I’ll figure out how to get a message to Blaster, and I’ll look up art stuff. Thanks so much for letting me help.”

“Make sure to also do some research on what we’re actually fighting for,” said Megatron.

“Yeah, of course. You haven’t got a site up on the data network yet, have you?”

“Oh,” said Rewind. “Damn. Yeah, I should probably get on that. I’ll be a bit busy contacting artists and working out scheduling conflicts, but hopefully I’ll have time to put up a site too. Without quitting my jobs again.”

“I can do it,” Orion offered. “I’ve actually done a bit of work on the library’s catalogue site. I’m decent at graphic design and code.”

“Ah, you’re a life-saver, Orion, thanks.” Rewind knocked fondly on her forearm. “I really gotta get home, though, my shift starts in ten hours and if there’s traffic like last time we were coming back from Uraya…” Orion and Megatron both stood up, abruptly filling the tiny room. Megatron unlocked the door and left.

As Orion followed her, Skids whispered, “Megatron’s a bit… dour, isn’t she? Are all miners like that?”

“No,” said Rewind. “Most of them are a lot more fun. Megatron’s just got a meter-long I beam up her…  er. Don’t tell her I said that.” They waved at Skids and ran after Orion and Megatron.

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Outliers are Glitch, Windcharger, Skids, Scrounge, Trailbreaker, Siren, Skywarp, and an as-yet-unnamed original character. Yes, Soundwave is also an Outlier. But don't tell anyone. It's a secret.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last scene has references to police brutality and murder. It starts at "And then there was the vigil."

Two days after the meeting with Skids, Orion had a rough draft of the site. It was just a directory with a couple of info files for now, but the files were well written and concise. “ _I like it a lot,_ ” Rewind told her. “ _Keep up the good work_.” And they posted the address on a couple of the forums where they were well-known, asking for feedback. They didn’t get very many hits, but it was a start.

Pretty much that entire day except while they were at work, they were wheedling the personal frequencies of prominent street artists out of acquaintances. The first one they got hold of was Anode, who everyone knew would have been a brilliant scientist if ey weren’t a liquid reaction chamber. Instead ey painted gorgeous scenery in home-made mineral paint. Rewind found out ey were also pretty handy with a spray can, and asked em to include a couple of secret ads for the protest. Ey were skeptical, but agreed. And Rewind got two more frequencies out of em.

Next they talked to a couple of newbuilds from the 617th Street Gang, which was well known for marking its territory _and_ protecting people who were in trouble with the law. They’d actually offered to let Rewind join, but it wasn’t really Rewind’s thing. Now, though, Rewind needed the network to spread the news to its taggers and muralists.

The newbuilds promised to give Rewind’s personal frequency to every 617er who knew how to use paint, and passed on a message from the higher-ups: “ _If you ever need protection, we’re still here. We have the same goals._ ” Rewind was confident that a large portion of the gang would show up at the protest. And several friendly members volunteered to escort them back to the north end.

On the way back home they got a message from Skids detailing constructive criticism on their rough draft of the advert. So as they walked, they made changes to the image file, and by the time they said goodbye to their escort they had a second draft to send back.

Beamer was already home, trawling the data network for pretty crystal macros and celebrity gossip. She stretched out when Rewind came in, inviting them to come sit with her. “Working hard on protest stuff?” she asked, putting her arm around them. “You’re home late.”

“Mm. Yeah. I was all the way down at 617th Street West.”

She laughed. “Are you joining a gang?  About time.”

“I’m _not_. They offered to let me join just after Shutdown, actually, but all I want from them is advertising.”

There was a short silence, during which Rewind pulled up the site Orion had been working on to check the stats, and then Beamer spoke again. “You know, I think I’ll come to the protest.” Rewind looked over at her, surprised. “I used to think you were a bit silly for caring so much, but now I’ve actually properly been on the receiving end I’m pretty mad. I dunno, I guess I thought you were exaggerating. I’ve only been alive for about a decade, so I haven’t had as much experience as you. Um, anyway, I’m making Eject come too, ‘cos he’s an idiot and he got us into that mess in the first place.”

Rewind smiled at her and tapped their helm against hers. “Thanks. It means a lot.”

That night, Blaster called back. The first Rewind heard of it was the decoded message—Orion had sent it straight to Skids, and Skids decoded it for Rewind. Rewind immediately replied that Skids needed to be more careful what xe sent over unencrypted frequencies, but when they listened to the message it was just a wish for luck and the frequencies of a couple Polyhexian artists. Not enough to have Senate drones tracing the signal, anyway.

Blaster’s good luck message seemed to work, because a few days later when Rewind checked the protest site it had twice as many hits as the day before. Looking through the images file quickly revealed why: there were two photographs of advertisements on different public buildings. Rewind saved both to their hard drive. The graffiti would be gone in a couple of days, but it was doing its job.

During the darkest hours of the night Rewind walked downtown to see one of the murals with their own optics before it got painted over. They were surprised to find Orion there, apparently talking to herself as she stared at the painting. She turned when she heard their footsteps, and said, “Rewind! What are you doing here?”

“Just coming to check out the art I commissioned. What are _you_ doing?”

“Partly I’m making a sort of documentary, which isn’t very good. Er, and partly I’m testing out this camera that I bought. To see if it’s good enough for you to use. I thought you’d want to have it in time for the protest.”

“Seriously? Orion, you really didn’t need to… wow…” Orion detached the camera from her head and handed it down to Rewind. They turned it over in their hands, a tiny little thing but incredibly high-definition, according to the specs. Much more so than their own sensors. They could make real documentaries with this. “Bit of an odd time to be out,” they said vaguely. “ _Wow_.”

“Er, I also got you this. You said you wanted some…” She pulled a can of retroreflective paint out of her subspace and shyly offered it. “They only had it in orange when I went. I think it looks a bit like my biolights.”

Rewind stared at the paint. It would make them an instantly identifiable target anywhere they went. Probably double their chances of getting arrested or murdered. But it would also make them a rallying point—an impressive figure, even. A leader. “Thanks, Orion,” they said softly. “I’ll put it on for the protest. I’ve got a feeling being low-profile after that won’t be an option anyway.” They hugged Orion around the leg, and then grinned up at her. “I’ve been filming this, by the way. The camera’s _brilliant_. Also, can I stay with you tonight?”

Her tiny smile looked radiant in the faint light of the streetlamps.

—

And then there was the vigil. On the 589th, Rewind went directly from their last shift to Octus Park (named for some Senator who had never done anyone any good, probably). The ground was still covered with crystal fragments on the spot where Switchbounce had been murdered. Rewind stared at it as they walked past, trying not to imagine what it would feel like to have their spark crushed in their chest under a heavy foot. When they wrenched their optics away, they saw stricken expressions on the faces around them. They dropped the catalyst into their little dish of luminol and waited, side by side with hundreds of strangers in the darkness. Then someone began to hum.

Rewind chose a note at five intervals above and listened to the complex, discordant music they were all creating. Sometimes someone changed notes, and the change propagated through the park like ripples in mercury.

“Friends,” said a strong voice—Rewind looked to see that Traceback was standing on someone’s shoulders. “You gathered here to mourn Switchbounce, though many of you didn’t even know him. He was… an incredible friend, even to strangers. I don’t know where he got them but he always had these little packets of lubricant. People used to come to our hab suite to chat but he’d always joke they just wanted his lube. Most of the time they ended up staying for hours, and we made so many friends that way. We’ll… we’ll miss him. I didn’t know how I was going to make it through another month without him, but all of you have really made me realize that I have to, for him. So, thank you all. It means a lot to his friends to see that people value his memory. Thanks again.”

Across the park, biolights went dark, leaving only the ghostly blue of luminol to provide light until dawn.

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luminol is a real thing, and it's really cool looking. It's not incredibly common on Cybertron because it's an organic compound, but nobody really has any use for it so it's pretty cheap.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter about a protest, so it's got police brutality, general violence, unpleasant things happening to your favorite characters, and some death. Orion also has one or two dissociative/nonverbal episodes. So, not a fun chapter.

The 600th dawned hazy and blue-green, very still while the city was in standby. Rewind was already pacing in the warehouse donated by the 617ers—600th Street West, to match the date. Orion was awake too, sitting quietly by the wall staring at her fingers, but the Outliers who had arrived yesterday were still draped over each other behind a stack of illegally imported titanium. Rewind had nothing to occupy themself but their nerves and their spotless paintjob, until a knock sounded on the door.

Orion got up, glancing worriedly at Rewind, who shrugged. She hovered by the door, not sure whether to open it, until someone on the other side spoke. “Hey, let us in, it’s Serrator and Bulwark, we’ve got guests.”

Rewind nodded at her, and Orion opened the door, letting in five bots. Three Rewind recognized—Serrator and Bulwark were in the 617er leadership, and one of the bots with them was Jazz. The other two made straight for Orion: one large and red with scuffed up paint, wearing the winged badge of the State Guard, and the other immaculate in the black and white of a police officer. Rewind backed away from them, looking up at Jazz for signs that xe’d brought them here to arrest all the protest organizers.

But the red guy grinned and clapped Orion on the back, saying, “Orion Pax! Heard you’ve been getting up to no good—or should I say plenty of good? Someone told me you been getting death threats, and you didn’t tell me? You need someone watching your back.”

Orion smiled, small but sincere, and clasped the red bot’s hand. Rewind recognized it as the intimacy of old friends. “I was not expecting you two. You could have called ahead.”

The police officer made a delicate noise that suggested exasperation. “I wanted to. Ironhide said our communications might be monitored, though I told em it is very unlikely.”

“Rewind,” said Orion, turning an apologetic expression down on them, “This is Ironhide, and Prowl. They’re friends of mine from university. They both took the military track, but we were very close.”

“We still would be if you ever called,” said Ironhide, elbowing Orion. “Anyway, what’re all these guys doing here?”

“I’d assume they’re here to protest. _I’m_ here as Rewind’s bodyguard,” said Jazz. “You’re gonna need one after painting that big shiny target on your chest.”

Rewind smiled. “It’s intentional, believe me. But thank you so, so much. It means a lot that all of you came.”

More people started arriving as the morning wore on; by 0332 Megatron had arrived with a party of Tarnite miners, and a huge number of Polyhexian artists and musicians were crammed in too, plus bots from Polyhex, the Neutral Territories, and even Kalis. Rewind had no idea how all of them had found out about the _secret_ _hideout_ —but they suspected Skids and Blaster had been involved. In any case, Serrator was very annoyed.

Around 0600 people started trickling out the back entrance so they could look like they’d all come from different directions. When Rewind and Jazz made it out onto 600th West there was a growing crowd of people who hadn’t been in the warehouse, talking quietly among themselves. A lot of them had brought signs, and a good few had put on neon strips, fluorescent paint, or retroreflective tape. Rewind made sure to look around thoroughly, conscious now more than ever of the camera that followed their gaze.

Finally they asked Jazz to give them a boost onto xyr shoulders—one of Megatron’s friends offered eir own, almost two meters taller, so Rewind found themself high above the crowd when they started speaking.

“CYBERTRONIANS!” they shouted, to get everyone’s attention. They could now see people half a kilometer down the street turning to look at them. “Friends, strangers, _activists_ , we’re here today to send a message: we will be heard, no matter what! We’re marching to the Senate building to make our presence felt. Let’s make a fuss! Let’s get on the news! Let’s tell everyone what we suffer every day!”

There were cheers and engine growls from the crowd. Rewind felt their speech could have been longer, and was just trying to think of a good way to finish it off, when Orion climbed up to their eye level, boosted on Megatron’s knees.

“Not all of us have much in common,” she began, in clear, strong tones. The crowd hushed. “Rewind, who started all of this, is a data clerk and archivist. I work at the library. Megatron of Tarn, our organizer, is a miner. A lot of you here are manual laborers or Disposables.” She didn’t pause at all before saying it. Clearly she had been practicing, and she honestly sounded amazing. “A lot of you are not—so many of the brave bots here are not suffering the same injustices as Rewind and Megatron, but you chose to stand with us anyway, even at the risk of your own lives. From the depths of our sparks, we thank you. Allies like you give us strength in numbers and in political power. We couldn’t do this without you all. So even if the police come, even if the State Guard come, we are strong in our unity. Standing together, we can do _anything_.”

The crowd went totally mad. If they had cheered for Rewind, now they _roared_. A few transformed in their excitement, and a section near the front began to stomp their feet in rhythm. Looking around at them all, Rewind’s only thought was that Orion was absolutely incredible. That was a speech worthy of a Senator. No, there weren’t any Senators who could give a speech like that; it was a speech worthy of Orion Pax.

Rewind tapped Impactor on the shoulder to be let down. Ey handed Rewind down to Jazz, who looked up at them, smiling. “Quite a speech!” xe shouted over the noise of the mob.

“Yeah! I can’t believe how far she’s come. She used to trip over her own vocalizer whenever she tried to talk to reporters. Or, like, anyone. Megatron must be a great teacher.” As Jazz moved to set them down, they tapped xem on the arm. “Can I stay up here? I want to be able to see everyone better. For the history datapads, you know.”

“Rock on, mech,” said Jazz with a grin. “I like how you think. Time to get going, I don’t want to get left behind.”

Ever more bots joined as they marched eastward. By the time they reached 400th West Rewind estimated they had over a thousand. And soon enough, the State Guard showed up.

They had built a blockade of military alt modes and portable barriers across The Longitude at 354th West. Some of the crowd seemed to slow down as they saw the Guard, but after a hasty word between Rewind and Orion, the front of the procession kept the pace. They were almost upon the line of Guards when someone gave the order to raise shields, and the protestors had to stop. In the second rank of Guards, fusion cannons came up.

“Why are you blocking off the street?” asked Rewind loudly. “This is a main road. You’re probably causing a huge public inconvenience.” A couple people in the rows behind them laughed and cheered.

“Disperse immediately!” shouted an amplified voice, causing those in the front to wince and dial down their audio sensitivity. “You are causing a disturbance of the peace and incitement to riot!”

“Frag off!” someone shouted back.

“We don’t want anyone to get hurt,” said Orion. “Please let us through, so we can express our concerns to the Senate. We have the right to peaceful assembly and petition.”

The first few rows of protesters were starting to look very nervous, shifting and glancing at the guns still pointed at them. Rewind noted that the Guard had blocked off the road right before an intersection, so that if they tried to turn back there would be massive chaos.

“You’re not getting through,” said the Guard captain. “You won’t do any more damage to downtown.”

“Peaceful assembly?” asked one of the bots with cannons. “Don’t make me laugh. You scraplets destroyed tons of shops and injured dozens of police last time you tried this! Don’t give us that slag about peaceful assembly.”

Rewind plugged into Jazz’s power plant for extra power and broadcast over the frequency all the protestors had been given: “ _If they won’t let us through, we’ll make ourselves heard right here. With me, everyone: we’re people, not tools!_ ”

As the crowd began to chant, the Guard captain tried to shout over them. Rewind, at the front, could barely hear him saying, “This is a residential area! Shut up or we’ll shut you up!”

“JUST TRY IT!” screamed someone. “WE WON’T BE SILENCED!”

Rewind’s optics were fixed on the Guard captain, who had started talking quietly with his lieutenant. Their suspicions that something horrible was going on were confirmed when one of the Guard pulled a device out of a large crate. Rewind rerouted their camera input to their optics, devoting most of their processing power to the high-definition visual. And, yes, it was an EMP grenade. No doubt the Guard had shielding, but depending on what grade it was, the protesters could suffer glitches or get knocked out en masse.

“ _They have EMP grenades_ ,” Rewind broadcast. “ _If anyone has shielding, try to protect the people near you. It’s about to get real bad. Stay strong, everyone._ ” Moments later the first grenade went out over the crowd and Rewind felt every wire in their body fizzle—a sick feeling, like they were melting, mind and all.

When the dizziness cleared Rewind found themself on the ground next to Jazz, who was clutching xyr head. “Cold damn,” xe said with a staticky voice. “I really hope they don’t have any more of those.” Xe sat up and tried to help Rewind into a sitting position, but Rewind was distracted by desperately trying to make sure their recorded footage hadn’t been wiped. “Rewind? Rewind? Cybertron to Rewind, can you hear me?”

“Sorry. I needed to make sure my footage was okay. I should start backing it up on the data network. I’m fine.” They let Jazz help them to a standing position. All around, other people were getting to their feet as well, looking scared and angry. In the back Rewind could faintly hear bots shoving into each other.

“Not fragging cool,” snarled a green and black Disposable nearby. “That could kill someone who has bad wiring. They don’t care if they fragging _kill_ us!”

“No, no,” said Rewind. “Not again, we can’t let this happen again! _Stay cool, people. Protect yourselves._ ”

“Frag ‘em!” said the green and black bot. “They have it coming. They’ve been doing it to us for MILLENNIA!” She bent down and pried loose a bit of metal from the cracked street paving and threw it. Her aim was impressive—she hit the Guard captain on the side of the helm. He whipped around to glare at the protesters, trying to figure out who’d done it.

“Yeah, what are you gonna do?” shouted the green and black bot. “Kill me? Fragging come and kill me! You’re all cowards, hiding behind your fancy guns and EMP shielding.”

It was quiet enough, with people still recovering from the grenade, that Rewind could hear the Guard captain clearly when he said, “Give her what she wants.” Rewind could barely process what had happened, even when they found themself looking down at her half-melted body, lying between two other bots who had been caught by the fusion cannon blast.

“No,” they whispered. Someone started screaming. The crowd was pushing in every direction like they couldn’t decide if they wanted to smother the Guard with their bodies or run away. Most of them didn’t have weapons, Rewind could see. Some of them were crying. Rewind was crying. They got knocked over by someone pushing past and transformed so they wouldn’t have to see. But they could still hear the screams, the cannon shots, people banging into each other trying to get away. They thought suddenly of Orion—there was no way she was okay right now.

Rewind forced themself to transform back to root mode, and found Jazz kneeling over them, shielding them with xyr body. “Come on,” they shouted. “We have to find Orion!”

Jazz pulled them close and started scanning the crowd. “I got her. She’s with Megatron. Doesn’t look too good.”

“Can we get over there? Orion! Orion!”

They managed, with a lot of dents and shouting, to make their way to where Orion was pressed against the side of a building, eyes wide and blank, completely still. Megatron, looking terrified, had a tight grip on her arm. “Rewind,” she barked when she saw them. “Help her. She won’t move, and I don’t think she can hear me.”

“Can you carry her?”

“Yes, but—”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Rewind. “We need to get out of here. Everyone needs to get out of here. Let me broadcast that, actually. _Everyone needs to get out of here, holy slag why are you fighting the State Guard? If you don’t want people to get injured you need to stop shoving each other over! Please don’t be idiots and get yourselves hurt or killed because you couldn’t wait eight seconds for someone to move!_ ” They sighed, suddenly very tired. “I doubt the Guard will help out with that, of course.” At that moment, another EMP grenade went off, very close by, and the world went red-hot.

When Rewind came around they were in Orion’s arms, looking up into her fearfully bright eyes. She touched one trembling hand to Rewind’s like she was asking for permission, then clasped it. Chirolingually she said _protection/love_ , although her face said nothing but _terror_.

“Y-yeah,” said Rewind. “You too. Orion, can you transform? There are injured bots who need help, and your alt is big enough to carry some of them.” For the benefit of the other protestors they broadcast, “ _Anyone with a vehicular alt, please help get the injured out of here. Anyone with a vehicular alt, PLEASE help move the injured! We don’t want them getting trampled or getting another faceful of EMP._ ”

Orion nodded and transformed, so that Rewind was sitting in her cab—nearby Megatron did the same. Jazz climbed onto Orion’s door as she drove back up the street. “Pax, stop. It looks like this guy had a meltdown. Lemme load them into your back end.”

They managed to pick up three people, one of whom had to be draped over Orion’s roof, and got them to safety at the back of the crowd. Orion opened her door for Rewind to get out, but they didn’t move. “If you’re going back in, I’m going with you.”

Orion’s biolights dimmed. “Jazz, will you come with us?”

They got hit by two more EMP grenades before Jazz forced Orion to stop going in. They were all woozy and suffering poor coordination (Rewind was having trouble even standing up and talking), and at this point there were more corpses than injured at the blockade front. Honestly, Rewind didn’t think Orion was mentally present at all any more. Her blank eyes scanned continually for injured bots, and she shook badly, almost spasming, when she stood still. Jazz only looked deeply weary and sickened, so xe dragged Orion into the shadow of a hab building near 353rd and pushed her down into a sitting position.

“C’n you hear me, Orion?” asked Rewind, climbing clumsily onto her knees to look her in the face. She gave no sign of hearing them, just kept shuddering her hands and knees together with little clanking noises. “I get that you can’t really give consent righ’ now, but I’m scared for you and I wanna plug in. I wanna show you… nice things, I guess. Hope it’ll make you feel better. So please forgive me.”

They started playing the silly little home movie they’d put together to practice their editing. Beamer and Eject were playing a video game together, concentrating fiercely on the holoscreen. Rewind had set the camera on a shelf so it filmed them too, ankles crossed over Eject’s lap, drawing on a datapad to show Hi-Pass. He was helping them brainstorm designs for the graffiti advertisement. The film couldn’t show how it had felt like _home_ , but Orion’s eyes were closed now. Rewind clasped her hand to tell her, _safe_.

After a minute she mirrored the sign.

“Rewind,” said Jazz quietly, “we still need to get out of here.”

“Orion’s hab building’s pretty close, if she can drive.”

“I have a feeling we shouldn’t be taking the main roads, though. Right now is not a good time to meet the police. Hang on, I want to call someone I know who lives in the same building. It might not be safe to go back there.” Xe was silent for several minutes, during which Orion moved jerkily to put her hands on Rewind’s waist. Then, “Slag. Just like I thought. They have a couple bots staking out the lobby.”

“Rrr. What about my building? I’ll call Hi-Pass.” They switched to his hailing frequency. “ _Hi-Pass, is it okay for me to bring a couple people home?_ ”

Almost immediately his reply came back: “ _Don’t come home! I’ve been detained for questioning. Are Beamer and Eject okay?_ ”

The charge seemed to drain out of Rewind’s capacitors. “ _I totally forgot about them…  Oh, Primus, I hope so. I haven’t seen them at all today. They must have been in the back. They’re… probably fine._ ”

“ _They’re tracking my transmission! I’m an idiot._ ” And he went silent.

“Slag it. They’re worried enough they took my roommate in for questioning. I don’t think we’ll be safe anywhere in Iacon for a while.”

Orion opened her eyes, pulling herself out of the grainy memory of the concert they’d gone to, which Rewind had unconsciously queued up next. “If we hide, with Crashbang,” she said softly, as if to herself.

“What?” Rewind and Jazz both turned to look at her.

“They move around. They’re in Iacon right now, I thought of seeing their show. Maybe they could get us out.”

“I can’t think of anything more likely to work, so sure, let’s go with that.” Rewind, too afraid to care that it sounded like a stupid plan, found Pyrotech’s frequency and pinged her.

“ _Rewind of Petrohex?_ ”

“ _Hi, me and a couple friends are kind of wanted fugitives right now. Is there any chance you could sneak us out of Iacon?_ ”

“ _You’re in deep slag, Rewind. They’re calling you a terrorist on the news._ ”

“ _I know, okay? Please, I just need to know if you can help us_.”

There was a pause, then she sent, “ _Firecracker says to tell you we would’ve been at the protest ourselves except someone decided being arrested would be bad for PR. It was me, in case you were wondering. But we’ll help you. How many people do you need to hide?_ ”

“How many people need to come with us?” Rewind hissed at Jazz and Orion. “Us three and Megatron…”

“Ironhide and Prowl will follow me out of the city,” said Orion. She was looking down at her hands, picking at her finger joints again.

“The police don’t know them,” Jazz corrected. “They can drive out. Might have to get new paintjobs, but if we tell them where we’re going they can meet us.”

“What about… your roommates?” Orion didn’t look up.

Rewind’s spark ached. “I don’t think I could live with myself if I let them get arrested here,” they said. Then, to Pyrotech, “ _Six. But three of us are small._ ” Hi-Pass, the kindest bot Rewind knew, wouldn’t be coming. They put that out of their mind and started pinging Beamer and Eject to meet them.

Almost an hour later Firecracker turned up at the 617er bolthole where they were hiding, struggling to pull Crashbang’s huge equipment trailer. When she transformed, dozens of cans of cheap spraypaint fell out of her cab. “Hey guys,” she said wearily, as she started to pick up the paint. “You wouldn’t believe the time I’ve had getting here. Pax, Jazz, you’ll want new paintjobs. Nobody’ll believe a police cadet’s escorting little old Crashbang, and Pax is just plain recognizable.”

“Where are we going to go?” asked Beamer. She had been holding tightly to Rewind and Eject’s hands the entire time they’d been here.

“Let’s get out of Iacon first, huh? But we’re thinking southern hemisphere.”

“We have a friend in Kalis,” Rewind said uncertainly.

“Like I said. Let’s get out of Iacon, and then we can worry about where we’re going.”

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rewind is having a lot of trouble deciding how to deal with state-sponsored violence happening at their protests. How do you keep the most people from getting hurt? Do you let them try to hurt the police back? Do you let them just stand there and take it? Do you let them run away? It's a really tough question.


	11. Chapter 11

“ _The New Cycle’s Riots are entering their eleventh day, and there is still no sign of resolution. Over two hundred civilians and Guard members have been killed by the growing ranks of violent low-caste Iaconians. Reports from Polyhex, Tarn, and the Tagan Heights indicate that the violence is spreading. Bots march through the streets with signs protesting low wages and the deaths of rioters like Flip Sides and Drillbit, and the hospitalization of the popular street performer Slamdance of Protihex. The Urayan government has offered temporary housing for bots who have been displaced by bombings. The Iaconian State Guard…_ ”

“Turn it off, would you?” said Eject. “Can we watch something good instead of people getting beaten to death on our street? Something cheerful, maybe.”

“You’re welcome to leave,” Rewind said crossly.

Eject made no move to get up off Orion’s lap. “All I’m saying is, it’s the same news it was yesterday, and the day before. There’s no point watching it!”

“That’s not true.” They both looked up at Orion. “When the government finally does something to fix what we’re protesting, watching the news will be the only way to find out.” Rewind wasn’t so sure the government would ever fix anything, honestly.

The door of the temp hab opened and Megatron came in, still favoring her new leg. It hadn’t gotten dirty yet, so it was a bizarrely bright silver next to the rest of her body, except her left arm.

Orion made as if to stand up, then remembered Eject and Rewind were sitting on her lap and subsided. “How is your arm doing, Megatron?”

Megatron sat down next to her with a sigh. It sounded painful. “Still not integrated. I could’ve done with a more expensive patch job, but my credit account couldn’t. It’ll do.” When the door opened again, she stiffened and looked quickly around. She’d been jumpy ever since they left Iacon, probably because she’d taken so much damage at the riot. She wouldn’t tell them how it happened, although Rewind assumed she had told Orion. She’d just called to say she’d meet them in the Neutral Territories, and had shown up with half her limbs torn off. She couldn’t possibly have had a functional alt mode, so Rewind didn’t know how she’d gotten here.

It was only Firecracker at the door, though, poking her head in to look curiously at the holoscreen. “You guys do know that’s total trash, right? Why aren’t you listening to Photon Blaster instead?” When everyone continued to look confused, she grimaced. “Seriously? I know Rewind’s literally friends with the guy who runs it, she was at Shutdown 558. It’s a pirate broadcasting station that plays what they’re calling Punk music and reports on actual useful news like how to avoid the police or when a rally is actually a trick to catch protestors. I can’t believe you guys didn’t know about this. They play a lot of Crashbang.”

“How did you learn about it?” demanded Rewind. “Blaster’s been sending us encoded messages for months, she could have given us the frequency any time!”

Firecracker grinned, showing spiky teeth. “Fanmail.” She leaned against the doorframe, managing to look cool and casual even though it was almost three times her height. “Anyway, Pyro wanted me to come in here and tell you the show’s starting in three hours. We’re about to start hauling our equipment over to the Zaid Amphitheater. Since we’re selling tickets now we have to actually be there on time. Seeya all in a bit!”

After she left, Megatron grumbled, “We’ve left Iacon, why do we still need to pretend we work for them?”

“It’s payback for saving us from getting arrested,” said Eject. “Also, we get to see Crashbang for free!” He vaulted off Orion’s lap and stood looking expectantly at the rest of them.

“They’re really very good, Megatron.” Optimus put her hand on Megatron’s arm. “Rewind took me to see them a few months ago. I don’t know how much you like music…”

“The only music I’ve listened to is obnoxious pop music and mining chants. I can’t say I care for either.”

“You’re in for a treat, then,” said Rewind, climbing down as well. “Crashbang isn’t very much like either of those. And Eject? Their concerts have basically always been free.  I could only ever get you to come to one.”

“Well, they weren’t famous then, were they?”

—

Before the concert started, Firecracker and Pyrotech asked for help putting on retroreflective tape. It was that particular shade of energon-blue that all miners wore, and Rewind understood that it was a show of solidarity. They also knew, maybe better than the musicians did, that a lot of the protesters had been wearing it, especially in Tarn and Iacon. The members of Crashbang had probably been listening to broadcasts rather than watching the news.

Crashbang played pretty much an entirely new set, and Rewind was pleased to see that the band had taken their advice on content. The absolute catchiest song was a sort of angry ballad about standing up to the State Guard (no city was specified), and there were a couple more good ones about general dissatisfaction with being kicked around by the bulks. Either Crashbang had really done their research, or being a member of a famous musical group wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Then there was one from the point of view of a construction worker—Rewind had heard enough work chants that they recognized the drumbeat’s inspiration, and they could tell that all bulk laborers would hear something of their own lives in the lyrics.

They glanced over at Megatron, who was standing barely offstage, probably visible to the bots standing in the far left of the crowd. She had one hand pressed over her spark, and an expression of fierce longing, or maybe sadness. Rewind could pick the music apart analytically, but Megatron _felt_ it on a spark-deep level.

Rewind came to stand by her side. When the song ended, the tension drained out of her, and she leaned against the wall. Rewind could barely hear her over the roar of engines and voices in the audience when she said, “I never knew music could be so powerful. How can Disposables know? How did they…” She looked down at Rewind, and they’d never seen her look so much like a normal person. Her eyes, normally hard and bright, had dimmed, and for once her arms weren’t folded defensively.

“Maybe we’re not all so different, huh?” Rewind smiled up at her, and to their surprise she returned a small smile.

“I’m glad you made me haul their equipment here. This is certainly better than listening to the news in the temp hab.”

They listened to the rest of the set together, and before Megatron went onstage to start moving equipment, she looked down at Rewind with some kind of expression on her face. Not an unfavorable one. Rewind felt they understood _something_ about her now, although it was impossible to articulate what that might be. They might even like her a bit.

Rewind turned and went further backstage. They knew Eject and Beamer would be right in front of the stage, and they’d seen Jazz up on the service walkway messing with the lights. But though Orion must have been watching the show, they hadn’t seen her in a while.

They found her in the corridor outside the prep rooms, looking terrified and apologetic as a shorter bot in the red and white of contract services shouted up at her. Orion was trying so hard to make herself small that they were nearly the same height.

“I don’t care if you’re personal friends with Pyrotech, unless you have a backstage pass it is  _illegal_  for you to be here. I’m going to call the police and if you try to run so help you Primus you  _will not get to the end of this hallway_!”

Rewind needed to distract the security bot fast, or Orion was 100% going to jail. “Excuse me? We didn’t think we needed passes. We’re here to help move sound equipment.”

Orion was still painted in an ugly, washed-out green, but as the security bot rounded on Rewind her eyes widened in surprise as she recognized one of the instigators of the New Cycle’s Riots. After a moment she said, “I’m not going to waste Crashbang’s time talking to _you_. For all I know you could be assassins hoping for a way to get close enough to take a fatal shot—! Empty your subspaces right now, if you have a weapon you are in for a _very_ rough time in prison.”

Rewind exchanged a helpless glance with Orion and started taking things out of subspace. It wasn’t much; a few old energon sticks, a portable mid-range transceiver they’d jury-rigged, and a few datapads. As Rewind started putting items on the floor they called Pyrotech. “ _Can you come to my location? This security guy is freaking out on me and Orion, she wants to have us arrested for trying to assassinate you._ ”

“ _Oh stars, what an idiot. Strobe will be right there, I’m still hooked into the amp._ ”

When Strobe arrived, the security bot was inspecting everything Orion had pulled from her subspace, which was mostly datapads and empty paint cans. “I would never want to kill anyone, much less Crashbang,” Orion was saying, looking distressed. “They’re lovely people.”

“Ey, security-bot. Stop harassing my crew.”

The bot’s head whipped around to look at Strobe. “You’re Strobe of Inner Vos, aren’t you? No, but are you really? You could easily—”

“Give me your supervisor’s frequency,” said Strobe. “What’s your name?”

“Red Alert of Rodion.” She stood at attention, suddenly looking alarmed.

Strobe stood for a moment talking to whoever was in charge of security at Zaid, then after a minute or so Red Alert whimpered softly and looked down at her feet.

“Er, are you okay?” asked Orion.

Red Alert straightened up to glare at her. “If you must know, no, I’m not. I’ve just been fired, and Subtense is going to make a report to my agency.”

“Oh, no!” said Orion. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble for you.”

“It was only a matter of time,” Red Alert said. She was talking even more quickly than before. “Every time the slightest thing goes wrong I overreact, they say. I know I do! I can’t help what I am, I just _think_ more than everyone else.  What if there WAS an assassin, and some other security guard let them through? I wouldn’t seem so crazy then, would I?” She looked up past Orion at the wall. “How am I going to get a job now?”

“It’s okay!” Orion almost shouted. When Red Alert turned to look at her, she fumbled. “We can give you a job.” She looked hopefully at Strobe, who crossed her arms and shook her head. “That is, I can give you a job. If you don’t mind working for, er, revolutionaries.”

Red Alert’s eyes widened. “That’s what the paint was for! You’re a terrorist! You’re Orion Pax of Iacon!”

“I’m not a terrorist! I believe in equal treatment for all Cybertronians, regardless of caste or function. Everything we do is in an effort to spread information and get the government to acknowledge how poorly some of its citizens are treated!”

“You kill police!”

“What, us personally?” snapped Rewind. “Or do you mean we tell protestors to do it? Because I have footage of myself and Orion specifically telling everyone not to touch the police.” Red Alert seemed momentarily speechless, so Rewind continued. “And if people who have been stepped on, starved, and murdered by the state want to do a little damage of their own can you really blame them?”

“Violence doesn’t counteract violence,” said Red Alert.

“That’s actually a sentiment more useful to Functionists than to people who want to change the status quo,” said Orion, to Rewind’s delight. “Violence is abhorrent, but systemic violence against entire castes is very different from the violence that happens at riots. Believe me, I want nonviolent protests to be the norm as much as anyone. But ultimately I don’t have control over other people’s actions. I’d actually like the movement to be more organized, keep better track of personnel, that sort of thing, in order to _prevent_ more riots.”

Rewind could tell Orion’s earnestness was winning her over. “Well…” she said. “This merits more research. If you give me your hailing frequency I’ll contact you to set a rendezvous point in a few days. Maybe. No promises.”

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the first illustration you can see that Megatron's missing a bit of tape. After she got her new limbs, she couldn't be bothered to get more--miners are issued retroreflective tape free for safety reasons, and she hasn't felt like buying any. Unlike the good bots of Crashbang, she either doesn't know it's a fashion item or doesn't care.
> 
> In the second illustration you can see my incredibly confused attempts at interior decorating.


	12. Chapter 12

Orion came back to the temp hab looking pleased, so Rewind was pretty sure she’d convinced Red Alert to join them, or at least not get them arrested. “How’d you do it?” they asked.

“How do you know?” asked Orion, Eject, and Ironhide almost simultaneously.

Rewind grinned, amused. “You look like you got what you wanted, is all.”

Orion sat down between Ironhide and Megatron; Ironhide turned to put her legs up on Orion’s lap, and Megatron inched subtly closer to her. “I did. After Red Alert did some research she wasn’t so hostile, and I persuaded her to be sympathetic by pointing out that she suffers the same ill treatment because of Functionist ideology that Disposables and laborers do. Her paranoia often causes others to see her as bad at her job, and therefore worthless. I believe that she has always been upset by these experiences but hasn’t been able to articulate it until now.”

Beamer revved her engine in applause. “Bravo! You talk like an encyclopedia! And I think it’s really cute.”

Orion’s biolights flushed grey and she looked down at her knees. “Er… She, she mentioned, maybe accidentally, that she has some trouble dealing with reality, and with other people, just because of who she is. I’ve felt the same way, so I understand how important it is to have people who value me for who I am, and what I _can_ do.”

Megatron’s eyes were fixed on Orion’s face as she gently touched Orion’s arm. It was actually kind of cute how devoted she was. Rewind was quietly taking bets with themself on how long it would take Orion to notice. “Your nobility does you credit,” she said. Orion smiled warmly at her, and Rewind took a moment to revise their bet.

—

Red Alert met with all of them—that is, all three of them—a few days later. She seemed, amazingly, even _more_ nervous than right after she lost her job. Well, now she was _kind of_ a terrorist in the eyes of the law, so Rewind couldn’t blame her.

She addressed all her questions to Orion, only looking at Megatron in quick, fearful glances, and seemed to ignore Rewind entirely. It wasn’t that Rewind wasn’t _used_ to this sort of treatment, but it got pretty annoying after almost sixty-four years. They directed an exasperated glance at Megatron and were pleased to find her doing the same at them.

The fleeting smile they exchanged apparently upset Red Alert. “What? What’s so funny?” she asked, interrupting Orion in the middle of a sentence. “You’re laughing at me too? I thought this was supposed to be an equal opportunity r-revolution.” It was an entirely natural conclusion to jump to, given what Orion had told them about her personal history.

“We’re not making fun of you,” Rewind assured her. “It’s just we’ve noticed you’re not talking to us, and it’s kind of a shared experience for Disposables and laborers, getting ignored when there’s a high-caste bulk around. Especially one as handsome as Orion.”

Red Alert’s biolights flushed a delicate shade of green and she covered her mouth with her hands. At first Rewind thought it was because of the teasing (it was probably too early for that, damn) but when she spoke it was to say, “I, I hadn’t even noticed! I’m so sorry for jumping to the worst conclusion, I’m not used to being around people who are sincere, or maybe they’re sincere and I’m just not good at distinguishing it, but I’ve never—” She put her hands over her mouth again as she abruptly stopped speaking. “I’ve been told I shouldn’t try to sound pathetic.”

Orion’s face tightened in what Rewind recognized as anger. “Red Alert, if anyone’s told you not to talk about your experiences because it makes you sound pathetic, it’s not because you are a bad person. It’s because they don’t want to feel uncomfortable about condoning how you’ve been treated. It’s _not_ a failing of yours. It’s them having—pardon my language—their heads stuck in their exhaust pipes.”

Red Alert smiled uncertainly, but still looked alarmed when Megatron spoke.

“I’ve been told the same thing about my writing. When I tried to expose the injustices manual laborers suffer, even my fellow miners told me I was being overdramatic. And if the foreman had read them, I would have been beaten. It’s our prerogative to speak out against the abuses of the current system.”

“The point is,” said Rewind, “if you want to tell us anything we’ll listen, and we won’t judge you. And if you want to tell everyone, we’ll help you. If you don’t want to tell everyone, we’ll still help you.”

Red Alert’s face had become stiff and unexpressive—Rewind suspected she was trying very hard not to show emotion. “Thank you,” she said. “Your enc-couragement is appreciated.”

“Encouragement aside,” said Megatron, “what can you do for us as security director?” Red Alert looked ridiculously grateful for being asked such a blunt question. But she was happy, and she had a lot of very detailed plans for safety.

—

When the group of revolutionaries parted ways with Crashbang in Altihex, Beamer and Eject went with the musicians. “I’m sorry to leave you alone like this,” Beamer had said. “I just don’t want to be afraid I’m going to die all the time.”

“Yeah.” Rewind had had some difficulty speaking, so they’d clasped her hand. _Love you forever._

Uncharacteristically, Eject had grabbed them in a tight hug. “Stay safe, mate. If you die I’ll kick your skidplate, so you better not.”

Rewind had bumped their helm into his and said, “Find Hi-Pass for me. Make sure he’s okay. Tell him I’m sorry and I love him.”

“Love you too,” Eject had mumbled.

Rewind was glad they had clear footage of that goodbye. When the convoy set off, it became painfully obvious that everyone in it except Rewind was a bulk, and they couldn’t help feeling that they were alone now. Both in representing the interests of Disposables and, well, socially. Orion had enough friends for everyone—Ironhide and Megatron wouldn’t leave her alone, and Prowl and Red Alert were happy to stick close to her. Rewind was glad to be riding with Jazz. Xe had good taste in music and didn’t seem to expect conversation.

It took about five hours to get to the Kalis border, at which point Rewind immediately tried Blaster’s personal hailing frequency. “ _We’re here! Please reply ASAP if you receive me._ ”

Within eight minutes she did. “ _Rewind! Is that really you? I’m looking forward to seeing your face again, that’s for sure. Why don’t you come down to my hideout?_ ”

“ _Is it okay if I bring, er, six extra friends?_ ”

“ _Sure thing. That’s Pax, Megatron, your bodyguard Jazz, those two tough guys, and… help me out here, I’m stumped. I thought I knew them all._ ”

“ _Our new security director, Red Alert. She’s a bit funny in the head, we accidentally got her fired so Orion felt bad and hired her. She’s brilliant, though. Really knows her way around a surveillance network._ ”

“ _Fantastic! If you’re coming from the NT or Alti you should be able to get to these coordinates by 2300. Have you got my encryption key?_ ”

“ _Yeah, Skids taught me how to decode it before we tried to march on the Senate. You know. In case._ ”

“ _Right. Be careful who sees you coming._ ”

“Hey, Jazz, I’ve got coordinates for you. I’ll flag down Orion and tell her to follow us.”

“We going to see Blaster? I’ve heard so much about her, but I never got to meet her at Shutdown.”

“We are. Apparently she already knows almost everything about us.”

“There’s got to be a few things we can tell her, huh?”

It turned out Blaster’s hideout was in the basement of an electronics store, and it was only reachable by talking to the manager, who showed them to a door hidden behind endless shelves of consumer goods. Stairs led down into dimness lit faintly in infrared—it would be difficult to approach in alt mode.

The manager must have commed Blaster, because another door opened up and she leaned out of it, grinning. “Come in! There’s not too much extra space with seven of you plus me and Squawkbox, but we’ll manage.” She stood aside to let them all walk through into a cheerful room painted in rust and chrome yellow, with audio equipment pushed against every wall. A small blue and purple bulk was sitting at a pretty decent-looking desk made of scrap metal, working on a datapad and mumbling quietly to themself.  They looked up as Rewind’s group filed in, and Rewind guiltily stopped trying to guess what their alt mode could possibly be.

“The revolutionaries!” they said, standing up. “I’m Squalktalk, uh, Squawkbox, sorry, I’m a little surprised to see you ‘cos I wasn’t listening to Blaster when she told when me you were coming. But she definitely did tell me, I just wasn’t listening. Sorry, Blaster. Hi, it’s nice to meet you all, I help out with writing and recording on the broadcast.”

Orion politely offered her hand and Squawkbox clasped it, looking surprised. “Orion Pax of Iacon. I’m glad to meet you too, and I’d like to thank you for sharing your, er, home with us.”

They turned to Rewind next ( _that_ was a surprise) and clasped their hand too, saying, “Rewind of Petrohex, it’s an honor to meet you. Not that it’s not an honor to meet all of you but you, well, you started the whole movement yourself, it’s a lot for a Disposable—oh no, I should probably shut up now. Sorry.”

“ ‘s’all right,” said Rewind. They could forgive what sounded like an accidental insult, seeing as Squawkbox was so pleased to meet them. The hand clasp was one that indicated a lot of respect.

Squawkbox greeted Megatron too, then Blaster told everyone to stop standing around looking awkward and have some energon, which she’d been saving for the occasion. Prowl and Ironhide sat on either side of Orion, like they were guarding her from something, but Jazz sprawled on the floor next to the chair Rewind had chosen. With relief, Megatron sat down too when Rewind moved to the arm to make room. Her new limbs must still be giving her trouble.

With her usual bluntness, she addressed Blaster. “I have several questions. First, how secure is this place? How long is it prudent for us to stay?”

“I mean, it’s as secure as you can expect the secret basement of a retailer to be. As far as I know, no-one in Kalis is after us. Yet. That might change with you and Rewind and Pax here, huh?” Megatron let out an amused snort. “Anyway, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like, but it might get a little cramped. If we all start screaming at each other I’m sending you outside to scream at the government instead.”

“And what’ll you be doing?” asked Ironhide. “Sittin’ safe in here tellin’ the world how brave we are?”

Blaster didn’t seem to think it was an insult. “Someone’s gotta do it. But I’ll probably make Squawkbox take one for the team and take over the broadcast if you organize a protest here in Kalis. There hasn’t been anything major here yet, though. Kalisene bots aren’t as fed up as Iaconians. Honestly I think it’d be smarter to go somewhere else, but you might as well stay here and rest up, make some plans, that kind of thing. Especially Megatron. You look beat.”

“That’s a very accurate summary of what happened to me, yes,” Megatron snarled.

Blaster held up her hands. “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it. I’m sorry about my social skills. I haven’t been going out too much, just in case.”

“If we left to find a more productive place to work,” said Orion, glancing worriedly at Megatron, “would you come with us? Or were you planning to stay in Kalis and continue your broadcast?”

“Nah, I can broadcast anywhere, as long as I have my equipment and a transmitter to tap. I dunno if Squawkbox would want to come, though.”

“Definitely!” Squawkbox said. “I haven’t gotten a chance to take part in any real action but I _want_ to. I want to be useful. I’m not that attached to Kalis, anyway.”

Blaster grinned. “In that case, let’s all chill for a little while. Figure out our next destination, heal up some, and, most importantly, get to know each other. Speaking of which, sorry to keep dominating the conversation, but I haven’t heard anything about you, Red Alert. D’you mind telling me a little about yourself?”

Red Alert, who had been scrutinizing the room carefully since she walked in, looked sharply at Blaster. “I work in security,” she said. There was a short awkward silence as Blaster tried to figure out if she was done talking.

“I’m the one who gave her your name,” Rewind told Red Alert. “She already knew everyone else who would be with us, and I thought it was only fair that our host know who would be living in her home.”

“Hm.” Red Alert turned back to examining the ceiling, probably for hidden cameras. Rewind was a little surprised she hadn’t asked them to delete all the footage of her on their camera, honestly.

“I, for one, would like to go into standby,” said Prowl. “Unless, of course, anyone has an imminent need for my advice.”

“That goes double for me,” said Rewind, thankful for Prowl’s tact or possibly complete lack of it. “I haven’t properly powered down for days. Should I just lie down on the floor?”

“Well, we certainly can’t all do that,” said Megatron quietly.

“It’s okay, we’ve got another room. I was gonna power down there, actually, it’s more of a storage room. Coming, Squawkbox?” Squawkbox looked around as they stood up—Rewind thought they were looking at Megatron, or maybe Rewind themself—but followed Blaster into the other room, leaving the guests to sort out standby positioning.

Rewind slid off the chair and went to lean against the wall in the corner by the door. A weird dance was going on around Orion as both Megatron and Ironhide tried to get between her and the rest of the room. Rewind got distracted looking at Red Alert, who was still standing exactly where she had been since she walked in, and when they looked back Prowl was shooing Orion’s admirers away, looking exasperated.

“Are you going to go into standby, Red Alert?” Rewind asked. “You don’t look like you plan to.”

“Well, _someone’s_ got to keep watch.”

“That’s fair. Carry on.” They backed off, and started musing on how long they wanted to power down for.

While they were debating with themself, Jazz came and sat down next to them. When Rewind looked over at xem, xe gave a dazzling smile. “Mind if I come hang out with you? I wouldn’t feel like much of a bodyguard if I didn’t stick by your side.”

“Ironhide must be kicking emself then.” Rewind laughed. “Sure, it’ll help me ignore Orion’s fan club.”

“She does draw attention, huh? I mean, she’s the high-caste bulk, for one thing. The media loves her. Not to mention how good-looking she is.”

“Don’t tell me you fancy her too,” said Rewind.

Jazz smiled at Rewind. “Nah. She’s not really my type. Awfully serious, isn’t she?”

“Most people find it charming.”

“Oh, I won’t deny it’s charming. I just prefer a bot who knows how to have fun.”

Rewind knocked lightly on Jazz’s knee. “ _All_ right, I’m powering down now. If I waited for you to stop talking I might never get any standby time, huh?”

Jazz laughed. “True enough. Have a good defrag.”

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What kind of recording equipment do Cybertronians use, and why is it so big? This, and other important questions, will never be answered in hit robot novel Punk As Hell.


	13. Chapter 13

“I thought it was exaggerated in the movies,” Blaster said, staring up at an elegant building entirely coated in electrified gas filaments in pink, green, and orange. “I can’t believe this is actually what Kaon looks like.” Connected by many delicate arched bridges, no-one who lived and worked in these buildings would ever have to set foot on the ground.

“That’s just where all the rich bots live,” said Jazz. “Every city has its slums—look down.” They all went to look over the edge of the platform. Gathered around the reinforced bases of the towers and huddled under the buttresses were clusters of scrap metal shanties. Rewind thought they saw holes knocked in the sides of the towers, creating caves and extensions of the interior. “The higher up you go in a building, the richer the bots in it. It’s not like Iacon, where every building has one owner.”

“Bizarre,” muttered Blaster. “Never saw that in the movies.”

Rewind had seen a total of five movies in their lifetime, mostly after Beamer and Eject whined for a couple hours, but they could imagine the kind of plots that would happen at ground level. No movie protagonist would ever _end_ a film living broke and starving under a pile of scrap metal. It was just added in for flavor.

Speaking of living under a pile of scrap metal—“Where are we staying?” they asked. “It’s been bugging me for ages.”

“I’ve been calling around—” Blaster started, but stopped when Megatron started speaking at the same time:

“I’ve been sent a thousand shanix, so we can rent a temp hab.” Everyone turned to look at her in surprise, and she slouched down a little further. “No, I don’t know who it’s from. I got it over the data network, anonymously. It went through the Neutral Territories, so it could have been from anywhere.”

“When were you gonna tell us this?” asked Ironhide.

“When I was done trying to trace it, which was about thirty-two seconds ago.”

Rewind interrupted Ironhide, who was probably about to say something rude. “It doesn’t matter _who_ the money came from. This is great news! It means someone rich likes us! It means it’s not just bots who are actually suffering who want to offer real support!”

“We should stay in the poorer part of the city,” said Orion. “We’ll be closer to the people who need us.”

“And it never hurts to save money on rent,” added Rewind. Megatron rumbled a laugh.

And so, about two hours later, they found themselves in the Short Circuit, Kaon’s gladiatorial district, where buildings never got more than sixteen stories tall. It was incredibly weird to Rewind, because Iacon did _not_ have any violent sports—UNHI didn’t even have an official lobbing team. For once in their life, they were less worried about the police than the people who lived there, because their group was so obviously in much better repair than most of the bots they saw on the street. Well, that and they’d heard the only military presence in Kaon consisted of the private guards of the very rich.

Rewind was immediately determined to walk around until they didn’t need a map, but as everyone else was tired from driving all the way from Kalis, Blaster and Squawkbox were the only ones willing to come with them. When they set out from the temp hab, everyone but Red Alert was in standby, humming peacefully.

Rewind wanted to visit an arena first off, to see if the gladiators would talk to them. Luckily, the nearest one was only eight minutes away on foot. When they got there, they found a small group of bots training, all gathered in the shade on the western side of the arena. At Squawkbox’s suggestion, the three of them sat down in the stands a little ways away and waited for the gladiators to notice them.

The first to catch on was the red and black bot who won his mock battle and started toward the arena’s entrance. As he turned around, Rewind could see a striking white decal on his chest: it looked like it might be the natural endo-armor of some kind of organic creature.

“Who are you?” he said, coming to a stop a few meters away. “Sure as slag not gladiators, you’re so tiny.”

“Er, hi,” said Rewind, a little intimidated. If they stood up, they would be about a third his height. “I’m actually sort of doing research about what it’s like to be a gladiator. Would you mind answering a few questions?”

The gladiator refocused his attention from Blaster to Rewind. He was silent for a minute, considering, and then he said, “Okay.”

Relief washed through Rewind like new coolant. “Fantastic. How long have you been doing this, and why’d you start?”

“Eh, around four decades. The pay’s better than hauling scrap, ‘specially in Kaon, ‘cos there’s not that much scrap lying around worth anything.”

“What kind of money d’you make?”

“Ha! I fight for energon. I’ve never held a credit chip in my life.”

Behind him, one of the other gladiators had walked up and was trying to get a look at Rewind where they sat in his shadow. “Here, yes you have,” ey said. “You stole one off that engraver just last week.”

“Orright, fine, I’ve never _earned_ a credit chip in my life, happy?”

“Decently. What’s going on?”

“We’re interviewing gladiators,” said Blaster. “For research.”

“Why’d’you want to do research on us?” said the second gladiator, who was gray and gold, suspiciously. “Come to have a laugh at the dumb brutes, have you?”

“No, no, not at all! We’re trying to make things better for people, if we can. I don’t suppose you watch the planetary news much?” asked Rewind hopefully, but they both shook their heads. “Well, I’ve just come from Iacon, where the local Senate was trying to have me killed for starting protests. Disposables and laborers are treated just abysmally there, and I suspect here too. Me and my friends are trying to start a planetwide movement for civil rights.”

“Civil rights?” asked the red and black bot, squinting down at Rewind. “Is that like when you… er… get elected as, like, a Senator?”

“Those are civil servants,” said Squawkbox.

“Yes, thanks.” Rewind shot them a pointed look. “Civil rights are like, the police aren’t allowed to kill you for looking at them funny, and everyone has to get the same wage for doing the same job, and everyone gets trials if they’ve committed a crime instead of just rusting in prison forever. And if someone kills a Disposable it actually _is_ a crime.”

“I dunno if we’ve got any of those,” said the gray bot. “Maybe the first one. Guards usually make up an excuse if they want to kill you.”

“My point is those are all good things that a lot of people want to have. Like instead of having one per cent of Cybertronian making millions of shanix for doing nothing and most of us starving, everyone would have enough fuel to live.”

The gladiators seemed to remember the origin of this line of discussion. “Wait,” said the gray one, “so why’s this mean you’re interviewing Skully?”

“ ‘Cos I want people to know how bad it is for gladiators.”

“ ‘S not that bad,” muttered Skully.

“What if you couldn’t fight any more?” asked Blaster.

“ _That_ would be bad,” he conceded. “I’d probably starve to death in a couple years if I couldn’t get back on my feet or rob people. There’s plenty of bots who’re doing that right now. Why don’t you go ask them what it’s like?”

“Oh! Thanks, I will. And here’s a couple shanix for your trouble. Now you can say you’ve earned honest credit.”

The gray bot laughed. “You’ve ruined his reputation! He’ll never be able to look a gladiator in the face again!”

Skully punched em on the arm, leaving a sizeable, if shallow, dent. “Not if you don’t run your vocalizer about it. Cheers, mini.” And they both walked off.

Rewind looked over at Blaster, who looked sort of impressed. Squawkbox looked _extremely_ impressed. “Cheers is right,” said Blaster. “I’d’ve been scared to ask those guys the time of day if my chronometer stalled.”

“Hey, the worst that can happen is they smash me to bits, and at least I would’ve died in the pursuit of truth.” When Rewind saw the look on Squawkbox’s face, they quickly added, “I’m mostly joking. I haven’t got a death wish or anything, don’t worry. Anyway, it worked out all right. What say we talk to some former gladiators?”

As it turned out, it was hard to go anywhere in the Short Circuit without running into someone who used to be a gladiator, most of whom seemed to be barely keeping themselves polite enough not to hit anyone. Some of them were downright eager to tell their stories, though, if you had energon to offer. There was Bomb-Burst, whose wing had been crushed during a match, and who now siphoned energon out of anyone who looked poor enough not to have guards (though she promised not to siphon any of Rewind’s friends, as they ‘seemed nice’ and ‘some people might get tetchy’). There was Blurr of Ibex, who hadn’t been prepared for Kaon’s idea of fair play and had been crippled during a race. There was X-Change, who had taken a nasty head wound and been left on the ground for three hours until his show was over. There was Landmine, who said he had been crippled in a factory explosion while saving workers, though his friend said actually his drill had broken while he was deep in debt so he’d gone to an arena and got pumped full of shrapnel on tryout day. Landmine’s friend declined to say how xe had been injured, but xyr legs were nothing more than crushed and twisted metal.

They also met Strafe of Helex, who had never been a gladiator at all, but had, she said, some kind of faulty wiring in her brain. “It makes me think weird things. Like, what if I just ripped off my own arm? I don’t _want_ to but what are you going to do when you can see it so clearly you think you’ve just done it? What are you going to do when you accidentally say something like that to your boss?”

Someone behind her muttered, “D’you ever shut up about it, Strafe? No-one cares.”

Rewind made a rude gesture at them and Blaster said, “We happen to. If it makes someone happy to tell their story I don’t see why it’s your business to make them feel bad about it.” She turned back to Strafe. “What happened?”

Strafe sighed. “Got fired, of course. I was doing _so_ well a few decades ago, until one day these creepy giant organic things showed up while I was working. I was already stressed out and my unit leader was yelling at me and I _panicked_ , okay, I started shooting at them. Later it turned out no-one else could see them so it just looked like I went crazy and decided to shoot up everyone at work. Word got around, and I’ll never get a job in the southern hemisphere again… only by the time I figured it out I was totally out of travelling energon. And that’s how I ended up stuck here.”

Rewind handed her another energon stick—they’d gotten rid of the credit chips because it turned out what everyone wanted was energon they could consume on the spot. It was harder to steal. “I’m so sorry, Strafe. Something a little like that happened to our security director before we hired her.  She was devastated to be out of a job. How long have you been on the streets?”

“Got out of prison just a few years ago,” said Strafe gloomily. “If it wasn’t for Kup’s band I’d probably be an Empty already.”

“Who’s Kup?” asked Squawkbox, leaning forward. “I’ve never heard a name like that.”

“Xe’s this old… I dunno, war hero I guess. Xe takes care of people, makes sure we stay good. Ha, you just can’t tell sometimes ‘cos xe does it by shouting at them. ‘Kup’ is a nickname, I think it means ‘head’ in some old Stanixian dialect. ‘Cos xe’s like the head of the dysfunctional castoffs in Kaon.”

“Can we meet xem?” asked Rewind. “Do you think xe’d mind?”

Strafe laughed. “Are you kidding? Xe’ll be over the moons to meet someone who hasn’t heard all xyr stories already. Come on. And don't pick any fights.”

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gladiators Rewind interviewed were Skullgrin and Slag, who are something approximating best friends. Also, in case you're wondering, "dysfunctional" is the Cybertronian equivalent of "disabled," not necessarily an insult. Although many bots do use it that way.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The illustration for this chapter is a cooperative effort by me and the excellent [armcontrolnerve](http://armcontrolnerve.tumblr.com)! Ai's helping me out with lineart so I can update more often, like an absolute champion cool person.

They followed Strafe for a couple of kilometers, until they came to what amounted to a fort built between the pylons of a massive tower-to-tower bridge in the industrial district. A small orange head peeked over the wall, disappearing when the bot saw Strafe. A moment later a large door opened, and they all walked in.

The interior of the fort was… spotless. It seemed bizarre next to the grime outside, but there was a sharp line at the door beyond which the metal of the floor was shiny and clean. The walls had even been painted white with calcium oxide, a material so cheap that it was easy to find in tailings piles.

In the front room there was the small orange bot who’d let them in, whose left arm was a mangled mess; a very battered greenish bot, who nevertheless had an air of authority; and another bot, red and tan, who was working on the floor with a fine wire brush. Rewind supposed he must be the reason the place was so clean.

“Everyone’s still out,” Strafe explained. “This is Kup,” (she pointed out the greenish bot) “Wheelie,” (the little one) “and Windsweeper” (the cleaner). “Guys, these are activists from Iacon who want to hang out and talk to us. Don’t waste them just ‘cos they look posh.”

 “Well!” said Kup, sitting up straighter. “You’re a long way from home. What brings you here?”

“The Iaconian government wants us dead,” Rewind explained. “For activism. We figured we should get out of the city.”

Kup nodded sagely. “I know the feeling. I’ve been wanted dead by more people than I can name, and not a single one got what they wanted. Do you know, in the Tyrest-Helex war a few million years back—this was before they were civilized, of course—I spent almost a decade behind enemy lines? Every day, praying to Primus they wouldn’t find me, living off the solar energy that came through the clouds of dust…”

“What side were you fighting for?” asked Squawkbox, looking fascinated. The most recent Tyrest-Helex war had been almost twelve million years ago. Rewind wondered whether Squawkbox knew that.

“I… well, you know, I can’t remember? Both sides were drafting us, of course. They’ve always thought they owned Stanix. Once or twice I had to kill bots I’d known since I was framed.” Wheelie had come to Kup’s side—they put a hand on xyr arm, watching xyr face. “I’m fine, Wheelie, just fine. That was only when my captain was watching, of course. Most of the time I let ‘em go, maybe snuck ‘em some of my energon if they were worse off than me.”

Rewind frowned. “Why did you fight at all? If they treated you so badly…”

“Didn’t have a choice, did I? I don’t like to brag but I was a bit of a leader type—if I mutinied the rest of my unit would too, and we’d all have been executed. That’s how it was in those days! I suppose that’s still how it is.”

Rewind got a ping—and from Blaster and Squawkbox’s faces, they had too. It was Red Alert, asking about their status and location. “ _It’s only been a couple of hours,_ ” Rewind told her. “ _We’re fine!_ ”

“ _If you had been kidnapped, or beaten and left on the street, and I managed to alert Orion Pax and Megatron in time to save you, you would not be complaining._ ”

“ _Er, yes. You’re right. Sorry. We should be back by 2900._ ”

“ _I would not go walking when it is dark outside_ ,” said Red Alert ominously. She cut the connection.

“ _Get some standby, Red,_ ” said Blaster privately to Rewind and Squawkbox. “ _She’ll give herself a nervous meltdown._ ”

“ _It’ll be hard to persuade her…_ ” Rewind said, half amused and half exasperated. But they were reminded of why they had come here, and they dared to interrupt Kup’s description of fighting during an acid storm.

“Kup, that activism I was talking about—you know, the reason Iacon wants us dead?—it actually involves collecting stories about the way people’s lives are _now_. That’s to help us understand what we should be fighting for _and_ so we can tell everyone the truth about how people are treated who don’t perform high-value functions.”

Kup chuckled. “So what you’re saying is, shut up about the past and start talking about the present. Oh, don’t worry about being rude, it’s been said to me before. You’ve got a good spark, youngster. What do you want to know?”

“Tell me how you ended up founding this little haven for dysfunctional bots.”

Because it was Kup, the story took over an hour. Three more bots showed up while xe was telling it: Blurr of Ibex, a heavily armored ex-military bot called Gasket, and an enormous red and gray bot who didn’t seem to talk much but had _Sludge_ scratched on her chest.

Sludge and Gasket got into what Rewind hoped was a _friendly_ fistfight and nearly crashed into everyone before Kup interrupted xemself to shout at them to settle down so everyone could hear. Sludge sat down near Kup’s chair to listen to xyr story, while Blurr paced lopsidedly on padded feet; Gasket disappeared into a back room.

“So being stranded in Kaon wasn’t so bad after all. I met Wheelie, and everyone else. I daresay I could even get a job, but I’m just so creaky I don’t feel up to it.” Xe laughed. Honestly, that probably wasn’t the whole story, but Rewind didn’t say anything.

 _Ping_. It was Jazz. Rewind returned a location ping and opened up the channel. “ _You’re up early. I expected you all to be in standby until tomorrow._ ”

“ _Megatron, Pax, Ironhide prob will be. But I’m p efficient! BTW Red passed out finally when I told her I’d take guard duty. Can I come find you?_ ”

“ _If you told Red you’d be on guard duty shouldn’t you be, y’know, guarding the temp hab_?”

“ _What’s gonna happen? They’re indoors._ ”

“ _…I guess. We’re hanging out with a bunch of dysfunctional bots in this cool fort hab. I’ll tell them to expect you_.”

Jazz must have been close, because xe arrived only twenty-four minutes later—though it didn’t hurt that xe had wheels. When Wheelie heard xem calling outside, they got up and quickly climbed a ladder, impressively fast for someone with only one arm. Wheelie returned with Jazz to the game they were teaching Rewind and Blaster, which involved thin metal plates with little pictures etched in them.

“Oh, are you playing Black Sixteen? I want in next round.”

Squawkbox looked around at xem as xe sat down. “Aren’t you from Iacon? How do you know how to play Black Sixteen?”

“I’ve been on a couple field trips to the southern hemisphere, haven’t I?”

Blaster groaned. “Just what we need! Another expert on this game. It’s enough I’m getting my skidplate kicked by Squawkbox and Sludge!”

“You’ll figure out the strategy soon enough,” said Jazz, laughing. “Hey, Rewind, how’s Black Sixteen treating you?”

Rewind looked up from their hand of plates, which they’d been concentrating hard on. “I think I’m getting the hang of it. Like if you want to play moons you’ve got to make sure no-one has an interstellar shuttle first.”

“Ey! That’s how it’s done.” Xe clapped Blaster on the back. “Gotta be more like Rewind!”

“You’re in an awfully good mood tonight,” observed Rewind, smiling up at Jazz. “Has something happened?”

“Just fully charged and revving to go, my good bot. I’m always like this right after I refuel. Oh, and speaking of, I brought snacks. Figured it’d only be polite since these lovely people are letting us hang out at their place.” Xe pulled a large dish of soft miniature energon cubes out of xyr subspace and offered them around the circle of players. “They’ve got liquid insides! I got a little excited with my allowance.”

Rewind had never even bothered to check how much those cost, because they’d known they could never afford them. They took two and politely got up to offer one to Kup, who smiled and accepted it. You could never foster too much goodwill with bots who got into fights for fun.

“This is such an irresponsible use of money that was supposed to fund the revolution,” said Rewind with their intake full. “But I can’t really bring myself to be mad at you.”

“It’s not irresponsible at all!” said Jazz. “We’re making connections with respected members of Kaon’s dysfunctional community and showing our good will!”

“I agree,” Strafe added. “I’d definitely fight with you.”

Jazz beamed at her. “Thanks! I’d fight with you too! Oh, would you do me a solid and save enough of these for everyone else who lives here? How many of you are there?”

“Almost thirty-two,” said Kup proudly. “Just last month Jetstream joined us after his rotors got crushed in the arena—he makes twenty-nine. But people are always coming in and out, maybe twice that.” Probably most of the bots who lived here full time didn’t have usable alt modes, and couldn’t get very far. Rewind wondered why Strafe had been on the ground when they’d met her, rather than in the air. She hadn’t sustained any visible physical damage. Maybe walking took less energon than flying? Rewind didn’t know a lot of people with flight alts, though they probably could have asked Pyrotech.

“Well, give them out to however many people you can find, then. Let’s feed the revolution with tasty snacks!” Jazz hugged Rewind happily from the side. Surprised, they laughed, and bumped xem with their shoulder guard.

“Gonna play?” asked Sludge. As everyone looked around at her, she took another cube and ate it. “Black Sixteen.”

—

They ended up staying the night. A few hours after Jazz arrived, Squawkbox passed out on Sludge’s knee, and nobody else wanted to leave either. Most of the tenants of the fort went into standby, but not before another five turned up and introduced themselves—though to be honest a lot of them were pretty scary. So at about 0032 Rewind found themself trawling public broadcast frequencies for good music with Blaster and Jazz.

The volume of the music coming out of Blaster’s knees was low, so it wouldn’t disturb the bots who were still awake. Rewind and Jazz had to press their heads against her speakers to hear properly, so Rewind ended up sitting on Jazz’s legs to reach better. It was nice. Warm.

“I looked these guys up,” said Jazz softly. “They’re a gladiator band, or I guess they used to be gladiators.”

“You can really hear it in their music,” said Blaster. “They’ve got this kind of clashing sound like bots pounding on each other.”

“And what a name,” Rewind murmured. “Death Metal. It’s kind of gross and kind of awesome.”

Blaster switched frequencies again, and made a face a pop song about the nightlife in Ibex came on, all synth percussion and soft sawtooth. “Eugh. Wish I had nothing better to worry about than which parties I should go to tonight.”

“Catchy, though,” Jazz said. Rewind looked at xem with an exaggerated expression of betrayal, and xe laughed. “I mean, they’re designed to be, right? Designed to get in your head and start looping.”

“I was reading this article on how they use beats that sound like the biorhythms of the average Cybertronian to make it hook you better,” said Blaster. “You hear that tzsh-tzsh-tzsh-chk-whrrr? Doesn’t that sound just like a T-cog doing its thing?”

“Woah!” Rewind was delighted. “This might actually be a sample of someone transforming! You know your stuff.”

Blaster laughed. “I try.”

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For humans, a rhythm that mimics a heartbeat is powerful and evocative, widely used in all kinds of music. In Cybertronian music, a rhythm means something different depending on its timbre and other qualifiers, so even though the rhythm of a transformation cog is pretty distinctive it's kind of out-there to recreate it with some other synth. And the Cybertronian body has a lot of sounds to sample--incidentally, sampling has always been way more prevalent in Cybertronian than in human music because they have a kind of instinct to incorporate their environment into their lives and art!


	15. Chapter 15

The journey back to the temp hab the next morning was cheerful. After getting Kup’s hailing frequency the four of them walked out into the bright streets of industrial Kaon, chatting happily. That is, until they got back to the Short Circuit, where the first thing they ran into was a gang of gladiators. They loomed. They were in front _and_ behind.

“These guys look rich,” said one of the _enormous_ bots blocking the street. “Look how shiny. Got any energon on ya, prettybots?”

Rewind glanced up at Blaster and Jazz, who both looked alarmed. Well, Jazz looked more like xe was considering putting up a fight, and Rewind was pretty sure xe’d just get smashed if xe tried. So they took their stash of energon sticks out of subspace and held it up. “Here. That’s all _I’ve_ got, anyway.”

One of them took the energon sticks and stowed them away. “That’s nothing! The rest of you better have something good.”

“We don’t really have a lot—” Rewind started. But the next thing they knew the world toppled and blurred, and their haptic sensors were reading wire damage in their right arm and crumple in the shoulder guard. _Ow_.

They could hear Jazz’s engine growling loudly in anger as xe crouched down to put a hand on Rewind’s shoulder. “Don’t touch them! I’ll kick your skidplates and leave tire tracks on your faces.”

“Aw, look who’s brave.” One of the gladiators picked Jazz up by the opening in xyr hood, probably crushing xyr neck a little bit. Rewind could hear the metal dent outward. “You couldn’t kick a med drone’s skidplate. Now, you wanna get crushed into scrap, or you wanna give me your energon?”

A gun folded out of Jazz’s shoulder as xe snarled, “ _You_ wanna rethink that?”

The bot holding xem went down with a red-edged hole in their chest, but before xe could fire again one of the bots behind xem ripped the gun out of its setting. Jazz screamed and fell to xyr knees.

Blaster and Squawkbox, holding each other close, stared at xem with bright, horrified eyes.

“Lemme say it again, slower for you idiots who didn’t get it the first time. Give us your energon.”

Blaster took a cube out of her subspace and Squawkbox held out a shaking hand full of energon sticks. One of the gladiators laughed and took the energon sticks, pulling off three of Squawkbox’s fingers. They stumbled back into Blaster, clutching their hand.

“ _You_ haven’t given us anything yet,” said the bot holding Jazz’s gun. She lifted her foot over Jazz’s chest, getting ready to crush it.

“You can’t get anything out of a dead bot’s subspace,” said Rewind frantically.

“Yeah, don’t really care.” She brought her foot down with an awful crunch.

“No!” Rewind scrambled over to xem, looking for a sign of life. They could actually see the faint light of xyr spark through the wreck of xyr chest, which was almost worse than seeing nothing. One of the gladiators kicked Rewind again, bowling them over, and then they all left, laughing, like they just couldn’t be bothered to kill anyone right now.

Rewind crawled back to lean over Jazz and started talking even there was no way xe would answer. “Jazz, Jazz, can you hear me? Actually it’s probably bad if you’re conscious right now. Oh, no…”

“I called Red Alert,” said Squawkbox, kneeling by Rewind. “Don’t worry, she’s waking up everyone and they’ll be here soon. We’ll fix Jazz. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

“This is not _fine_ ,” snarled Rewind. “I can see xyr _spark_ , this is NOT FINE.” They smacked Squawkbox’s hand away and hunched further over their useless arm. They couldn’t shake the feeling that this was somehow their fault. There had to be _something_ they could have done so this wouldn’t happen. They should’ve made everyone give up their energon faster. They shouldn’t have let Jazz come. They should have come home earlier. They shouldn’t have gone out at all.

They stayed silently by Jazz until Red Alert and Pax and Megatron and everyone showed up, although they did let themself lean against Blaster.

When they saw what had happened, Orion and Red Alert gasped at the same time and crouched down to look at Jazz. “I told you!” Red Alert said, looking fearful. “I told you this would happen, even if I didn’t know it’s so bad here it even happens during the day, I knew it would be like this…”

“How could this have happened?” Orion said quietly, not seeming to hear her.

“It wasn’t even guards,” Rewind said. “Just some giant bots who wanted energon. Xe shouldn’t have tried to…” Their engine growled loudly again in frustration, and they jammed themself against Orion’s side. “I don’t think xyr spark casing was damaged, though. Luna, how much does it take to get rebuilt in Kaon?”

Orion carefully scooped Jazz up, obviously struggling a little. Her frame wasn’t meant for heavy cargo. Megatron took xem from her.

Rewind started to get up to follow, but stumbled when they tried to use their right arm to lever themself up. _Ugh_. Orion turned back. “Can you walk, or do you want me to carry you?”

“Yes, and yes,” Rewind mumbled. Right now they could really use the comfort of a bulk who _didn’t_ want them dead.

—

Rewind stayed with Jazz while Orion and Prowl were out looking for a body shop. Blaster was in and out of the room, fretting, but Megatron sat by Rewind the whole time, frowning at Jazz’s crushed frame. After a couple hours Rewind finally asked her why.

“I thought,” she muttered, “if I had been there, I could have done something. Might’ve scared them away, but I can’t fight for scrap. All I’m good for is being big.”

“And writing excellent essays, and rhetoric coaching, and music appreciation…”

Megatron almost smiled, but snorted and shook her head. “None of that will help us if we want to stay in Kaon. I’ve got to be able to defend myself, and you. All of you.”

Rewind thought this was _such_ a bulk way of thinking, but got startled out of their comparative psychology when Megatron stood up and turned toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

She didn’t turn around. “Out.”

“You literally just said you’re no good at fighting and now you’re going out alone. You might get hurt!”

“I don’t care,” she growled. “I’ve got to do _something_.” She paused in the doorway, and when she spoke again Rewind knew she’d been debating whether to tell them how she really felt. “And if I get killed, you’re not losing much.”

“A _friend_ ,” snapped Rewind. “A _revolutionary leader_.” But she was gone. What an idiot. What an absolute jerk with massive self-esteem issues stemming from Functionist ideas being pounded into her head since she was framed.

…They sighed. At least she was actually _capable_ of defending people, with training. Rewind would never be big enough to defend themself, let alone anyone else. They were just settling in for a good old session of trying to figure out whether they hated the Functionists or themself more, when Blaster came in.

“Do I wanna know why Megatron just stormed out of the hab looking like she was gonna cry or kill someone?”

“ ‘cos she’s stupid,” Rewind muttered, “and she thinks it’s her job to beat up people who try to beat us up.”

“Well, someone’s got to, right?”

“I GUESS.”

Blaster sat down in Megatron’s chair. She was quiet, looking at Jazz, for a couple minutes. Then she looked at Rewind, smiling faintly.

“What.”

“I’m wondering if you’re gonna be done sulking soon. You’re brilliant, but you can’t half sulk.”

“Now why’d I want to do anything halfway?”

“And _that_ is why you’re brilliant.”

Rewind finally snorted a little breath of laughter. “All right. Play me something to take my mind off Megatron. I’m not quite done sulking but I can put it off while you’re here.”

“ _Well_. I recently discovered this Vosene band on the data network—they might be the first ones to actually brand themselves as Punk. Here, listen to this…”

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, not all gladiators are as nice as Skullgrin and Slag. Our heroes really lucked out the first time, huh?


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I remembered to shower the excellent armcontrolnerve with praise last chapter, but just wait til you see this lineart. Oh my goodness. It has perspective, multiple people interacting, the works!

Jazz didn’t wake up until xe’d already been to the body shop three times—repairing the spark chamber was fiddly business, so actual doctors had to do it, and they weren’t free half as often as cosmetic surgeons.

As usual, Rewind was sitting by xyr slab, composing essays and messages to potential allies, when xyr visor began to light up. After a pause to look around, slowly turning xyr head, xe said, “What on Cybertron happened? Why do I feel like a space shuttle landed on me?”

“Jazz! I was starting to think you’d be out forever!” They tried to hug Jazz as xe sat up, but missed by a couple centimeters. The new arm wiring was taking a little getting used to, because Rewind had calibrated it themself. “Er, sorry. You probably haven’t date-tagged those memories yet. We basically got mugged and you tried to play the hero. And, er, a gladiator tried to crush your spark. So the space shuttle thing isn’t too far off.”

Jazz was still for a few moments, probably searching their untagged memories. Then xe said, “Holy slag, that’s brutal. Am I glad I have you guys! I really need to learn how to fight big bots.”

“Funny, Megatron said the exact same thing when she heard what happened.  She’s training to be a gladiator now.”

“Not a bad idea, actually—”

“Jazz!” Red Alert was standing in the doorway with a very strange expression on her face. “I can’t believe how stupid you’ve been! It was bad enough that you almost got killed by muggers instead of being sensible, but you did it directly _after_ you lied to me about staying on watch!” Her voice was already distorting with emotion. “Do you know what happened when I woke up? The first thing I heard was that you’d been knocked out and might die, and I was sure you had been hurt defending the hab, but then I found out you had left us _defenseless_ for the entire night—do you know what could have _happened_?”

Rewind edged out of the room, leaving Jazz to xyr fate with one last _you kind of deserve it_ look. Honestly Rewind was a little bit scared of Red Alert sometimes, and anyway it was almost impossible to stop her when she really got going. They came into the front room and found Orion sitting on the floor with her face pushed into her knees. Ah. The shouting.

“Hey, Orion,” they said, stopping by her knee. “Do you want to come out with me? I was gonna see how Megs’ training’s going, and you look like you could stand to get out of the hab.”

She released a brief staticky crackle over comms but didn’t look up, so Rewind took one of her hands and tugged gently until she got to her feet.

Once they were outside, Orion started looking a little more alive. “Have you seen Megatron training yet?” she mumbled.

“Nah, I’ve been a bit too busy. She can’t be much good though, she’s only been at it for four days.”

Megatron had chosen the Slamphitheatre, a large arena, since she figured there would be more people there willing to teach her. The last couple of days she had come home with complaints about how gladiators thought they were too good to waste time helping her. Rewind thought it was probably because they desperately needed the energon they got from wins and needed to train _themselves_.

So it was surprising when they peeked around the doorframe of the arena and saw Megatron crashing against an enormous bot, even bigger than she was—and holding for a second before she started to slide backward over the filings-covered ground.

“She certainly has plenty of physical strength,” Rewind said. “Want to sit in the stands and watch?”

“Um… yes…” Orion seemed to be having trouble turning her head away from Megatron, who was now braced on one knee trying to push the huge gladiator back.

“This way,” said Rewind, amused. They took Orion’s hand again to pull her in the direction of the stands in the shade. She was still mesmerized when they sat down. Wow. Cute and kind of gross at the same time. “Honestly, what’s even that cool about Megs getting beat up by a giant gladiator?”

“She’s not getting beaten up. She’s holding her own very well…”

And actually, she did seem to be. Rewind made a note to ask her if she had a history of brawling, though it seemed kind of far-fetched from what they knew about her. “Yeah, I’m pretty impressed. Though obviously not as impressed as _you_.” Orion’s biolights flushed faintly blue, but she didn’t look around. Oh yeah, she had it bad. She’d just been waiting for the moment Megatron wouldn’t notice her staring.

Rewind actually learned a little bit about fighting a larger enemy—Megatron wasn’t particularly fast or strong compared to the gladiator, but her lower center of mass let her turn some of her opponent’s attacks to her advantage. Rewind wouldn’t be able to use this kind of stuff on someone as big as the bot Megatron was fighting, but they might be able to take down someone Jazz’s size. They created a new directory for “self-defense ref,” tagged it “important,” and put all the footage from the fight inside.

When the gladiator finally pinned Megatron and got her to stay down, it was nearly noon. Apparently Megatron spotted them, because she trudged over to where they were sitting. As she got closer Rewind could hear the little pings of cooling metal and smell overheated coolant.

“Enjoyed the show, did you?” She looked and sounded more relaxed than Rewind had ever seen her. “It must be nice sitting in the shade instead of getting dozens of new dents, courtesy of overeager gladiators.”

“You’re very good,” said Orion quickly. “It’s difficult to believe you never fought before we came to Kaon.”

Megatron looked pleased. “ _Well_. Er, have you gotten any work done today?”

“Oh!” they both looked at Rewind. “Not work, but news. Jazz is awake! We left because Red Alert was shouting at xem. Hopefully she’s done by now, I’d quite like to talk to xem.”

“Shouting at xem?” asked Megatron. “Why?”

“Xe kind of lied to Red Alert and said xe was going to keep watch for her, and came to hang out with us instead.”

“Not the wisest move.” Megatron chuckled. “I’m sure xe’ll think twice before doing it again, when Red Alert’s done with xem.”

“Oh, xe will. Xe’s a fast learner.”

Rewind heard a sound like an industrial press coming closer and looked around, startled—it turned out to be Megatron’s sparring partner. “Who these bots?” ey said in an incredibly thick accent Rewind had never heard before. These days most bots spoke accentless Neocybex unless they were Vosene, but this bot definitely wasn’t. Eir frame was also like nothing Rewind had ever seen— _where_ had ey been framed? And why hadn’t ey just downloaded a Neocybex translation pack so ey wouldn’t sound so awkward?

“My partners in activism. Or terrorism, as they’re calling it these days. Orion Pax and Rewind. And this is Grimlock.”

“Which one are you, tiny?”

Ugh. They could do without hearing that nickname ever again. “Hi. I’m Rewind. Charmed.”

“No, me Grimlock not mean offense. Just surprised to see little bot here in Slamphitheatre. Or doing terrorism.”

“I don’t do _terrorism_ , Megatron just told you—”

But Grimlock was laughing. “Me Grimlock sorry. One day will get the hanging of jokes in Neocybex. Good bye, Rewind and Megatron and Orion Pax. Must take care of joints.” Ey punched Megatron in the shoulder and left. It was obviously meant to be friendly, but it still left a visible dent.

“Ow,” she muttered when Grimlock had gone.

“What, er, is with em?” asked Rewind.

“Haven’t a clue. I know one thing, though—I want em on our side. I’m going to invite em for drinks soon and see if I can get em to join us. Ey’re rather inscrutable, so I’m not sure yet how it’ll go.”

“What an incredibly strange person,” said Rewind. They stood up and stretched theatrically as if they’d just come out of alt mode. “Well, fancy going home to see if Jazz is done getting shouted at?” Megatron and Orion stood too, and they all headed for the arena’s exit.

When they got back to the temp hab, Prowl and Ironhide had returned home. Thankfully, Red Alert seemed to be pacified, squashed against Prowl’s side contentedly inspecting a datapad. Since Blaster and Squawkbox weren’t in the front room with them, Rewind assumed they were with Jazz.

Megatron and Rewind came into the room where Jazz was plugged into the wall (that cost extra), and found that xe was indeed listening to music with Blaster and Squawkbox. When xe saw them come in, xe smiled widely. “Hey, guys! I feel awful, thanks for asking. Megatron, you look like you fell off a skyscraper. Rewind, thanks for abandoning me in my hour of need, you dirty traitor.”

“You seem awfully cheerful,” said Rewind. “I guess she didn’t completely strip your paint over it.”

“At least Blaster’s here for me. They haven’t put in my new transceiver yet, and music is the only thing that can soothe my bruised spark.” Xe sighed mournfully. “Anyway, how was training? Found any good friendly gladiators who’d take me on as an apprentice?”

“It’s not that kind of arena. Everyone at the Slamphitheatre is three times your size.”

“So? I might have to fight some big bots. C’mon, at least let me watch.”

“I can’t stop you, once you’re allowed off the slab. But that could be a while.”

“Don’t worry,” said Squawkbox, “we’ll keep you busy with organizing stuff. While you were out we started planning how we’re gonna get people on our side for a big event to make Kaon notice us. We’ve been talking a lot with some of the activist groups we contacted about what we’ll have to do to change things, since the government really couldn’t care less about the people. We’d have to ruin the economy completely before they bothered to do anything!”

Jazz’s mouth twisted. “Reading up on Kaonite politics doesn’t really sound like my speed, but I’d be happy to do recruitment.”

Rewind patted xem on the arm. “That’s why we’ve got me. I’ll tell you everything you need to know about Kaonite politics.”

“And I’ll help you out with that recruitment,” said Blaster.

“What are Ironhide and Prowl and Red doing, then?” Jazz asked.

“Weapons acquisition,” said Megatron. Rewind was still not sold on that part, but if you hired military bots what did you expect? And, as Blaster said, if the government was trying to beat you up, _someone_ had to beat them up right back.

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may be thinking to yourself, Hang on, why doesn’t Orion Pax just shut off her audioreceptors if she hates to hear people shouting so much? The answer is this: much like me, Orion sometimes gets paralyzed before she can figure out how to get rid of unpleasant sensory stimuli and just sits there wishing she’d done something earlier. Red Alert also has sensory processing problems and sometimes has meltdowns because of it, but not because she gets paralyzed; she refuses to dull any of her senses because she’s afraid of missing danger signs from her environment.
> 
> And don't worry about Megatron! She just pinched an energon line in one of her fingers, but she'll be right as rain once she gets patched up.


	17. Chapter 17

Kup had turned out to be an incredibly helpful person to know; xe was almost universally well-liked by the dysfunctional population of Kaon, and xe knew a _lot_ of people who were actually pretty well-off. Xe knew which gladiators were more likely to listen than attack. And xe was able to give introductions to a lot of middle-caste craftsmen who weren’t too fond of the system that would dump them out on their skidplates the moment they screwed up.

That was how Rewind, Jazz, and Orion ended up driving to Kaon’s artisan district (confusingly named the Sump for reasons that Rewind couldn’t grasp, even after reading a brief history of the area) to talk to some of the shopkeepers Kup had mentioned.

Kaonite shops, at least in the Sump, were a ways off the ground; to get up to them you had to take the lift from the base of the building, where low-middle caste bots lived. Downtown (in the neighborhood most Kaonites called the Spires) shops were open to the air with easy access for flight alts, virtually impossible to get to by any other means. Rewind, curious, had spent some time researching this—surely Kaon’s entire upper class couldn’t fly? In fact, plenty of them couldn’t fly on their own power. That was why they hired private shuttles. There were even public shuttles for servants who needed to get from ground level to the places where they served. 

Unlike the Spires, the Sump had several distinct levels of walkways, one every six or eight stories—it was meant for people who _couldn’t_ fly, in other words. Every building had a region of flat space around it on every level, and many of them were little parks. Rewind was really starting to find Kaon’s multilayered shopping district charming. They’d never _thought_ of Iacon as architecturally dull, but in comparison to Kaon’s canyon-like downtown and Tyrest’s enormous domes, it kind of was, though they had come to suspect that this was because Iacon was built on a plain and most of Kaon on a small mountain range.

Rewind, Jazz, and Orion’s first stop of the day was a shabby but clean body mod shop called Lift Locker. The owner, Knockout, was at first very eager to sell them mods and then only slightly less eager to hear about their plans for revolution.

“The tax collectors keep coming around and threatening me!” she said, distractedly turning her fingers over and over through each other. “They’ll say things like ‘the tithe has just been raised again, sorry, nothing you can do, ‘specially if you want to keep your business!’ The first time they told me I might lose my lease I fainted and they took all the credit chips I was storing in the register. On further reflection I’m not at all sure they really were tax collectors.”

When they told her what they were planning, she got very nervous—“I’ve worked so hard for everything I have, it seems wrong to throw it away on purpose!”—but eventually came around to the conclusion that everyone would be better off if the “tax collectors” stopped threatening people. “My partner Grit, she’s not as well off as me, you know. She tries her best but she can’t think of the future as anything other than a terrifying ordeal! Her words. If she didn’t have me I’m sure she’d be dead. Oh, but what if something happens to me? I’ve got to try to be brave—!” At that point they all started to smell the distinctive odor of frying circuits, so Jazz told her to think it over at her own pace, and they left.

The next shop they visited sold encryption and security software, and looked very modern and well-to-do; so it was surprising how vehement its proprietor was about the dangers of Kaonite corruption. Flare talked at great length about how much he’d like to set up a system that would only let in paying customers and keep out the thugs who kept trying to take his money. When Rewind asked who hired these thugs, he waved his hand irritably and said, “I don’t know, the government? It doesn’t matter, whoever they work for is very bad for business.” And later, “You know, I would be glad to consider making a statement by not paying their stupid tithe, as long as I knew they wouldn’t wreck my store for it.”

Shopkeepers Matca and Glit were both Disposables—or Rewind thought they were. Glit was a quadruped type, framed for exploration and rescue work, but Matca was an odd six-limbed bot covered in sensory spines, and Rewind didn’t ask what they used to do. Anyway, it was surprising that they’d managed to start a shop at all. In Iacon, they never would have been able to get the lease. Matca made a disdainful noise and expressed the opinion that the titleholders of the building couldn’t care less who they were taking hard-earned money from. Glit pointed out that it mostly worked in their favor, and xe wasn’t about to complain. And Matca said it was all right because they could complain enough for themself _and_ Glit.

Matca did actually have some useful stuff to say about who employed the ‘tax collectors,’ though; they were an activist in what free time they had, and had done extensive research. “Oh, the same people employ everyone in Kaon, in the end. Some of them are planetary Senators but most of them are just rich because they’re friends with the right people, or just because they’ve been rich for so long. And since they want to stay that way they take tithes.” Matca glared out the nearest window as if there was a group of tithe collectors outside. “Do you know, I have a friend who’s a very prestigious designer, and when I asked her what she thought of the tithe she had no clue what I was talking about? If you’re willing to live in their subspace they couldn’t be happier to let you think you’re free. Anyway, it’s the same in every city-state, just better disguised in some places.”

Rewind was about to say it wasn’t like that in Iacon, but, actually, it totally was. Eugh. They probably used _some_ of the taxes for public works, at least. “How does the Kaonite economy even _function_? Like, do you have any exports or is it literally just full of rich Senators?”

“If you want to be horribly depressed, try picking up a datapad on the subject,” said Matca. “It couldn’t be worse unless we were literally slaves.” Glit pressed xemself against Matca’s legs, looking unhappy, but xe didn’t argue. And Rewind got two more hailing frequencies and a promise to boycott the state if it came to that.

When they’d talked to everyone Kup told them about—nearly all of them were willing to join a potential boycott, and some already knew groups that would turn out in force— they took Matca’s suggestion and went to the Kaon University Public Library to read about economics.

Honestly, Rewind was not impressed. Even having only been to the basement of UNHI’s library, this one looked small and badly maintained. When they got to the politics section, Rewind began to wonder whether bots framed in Kaon were actually given the software to parse written language. There were two datapads total, and both of them were clearly revisionist piles of melted scrap.

Rewind and Orion, disappointed, went to look for Jazz—xe’d had wandered off as soon as xe realized xyr friends meant to sit down and read for possibly hours on end. Rewind found xem chatting up a couple of university students, so they introduced themself.

Deluge and Mixmaster were the type of students who tried not to have political opinions because it interfered with their schoolwork. But, it turned out, they knew plenty of bots who were already passionate about civil rights. They even got permission to give Rewind and Jazz a couple private hailing frequencies, so that was a win.

When they went back to find Orion twenty-four minutes later, it turned out she had just stopped in her tracks in one of the aisles, and was frowning intently at something on her HUD. When she heard Rewind and Jazz coming, she looked up and said, “I had a thought, to look on the data network instead, and there is some very useful information here.”

“Oh yeah?” said Rewind. “Send me the site you’re on.”

“Here.” Most of the works on this site, from skimming a few first pages, were by amateur historians who had first- or second-hand information to go off of. Unfortunately, it was appallingly organized—as far as Rewind could tell, it wasn’t arranged chronologically or geographically, and sometimes not even by author. They absolutely itched to spend a couple days reading everything on it and coming up with a rational information architecture.

“I’ve been reading _An Examination of Kaon’s Political System in the New Megacycle_ for a little while and there’s some stuff you might find interesting,” Orion offered. “Start at the second section, the introduction isn’t very useful.”

Rewind came to stand next to Orion, reading quickly through for something relevant. They slowed down when they actually found something and had to reread the previous paragraph to make sure they totally got it.

“Guys?” Jazz asked. “Hello? You realize they have the data network everywhere, right? Like, we don’t need to be in a library for this?”

“Mmm.” Rewind was more interested in historical elections in Kaon. “Okay.”

With a loud clank, Jazz sat down by Rewind, and folded xyr arms loudly too. Less than a minute later xe sighed and stretched out xyr legs. Rewind tried to ignore xem, but when xe started tapping on xyr knee they said, “Look, why don’t you go talk to Mixmaster and Deluge? It’ll certainly be more interesting than watching us read.”

“Fine. I will.” Xe stood up and walked off between the bookshelves.

Within eight minutes xe was back. “I couldn’t find them. They must have gone.”

“Mmm.”

Xe shifted from foot to foot, again loudly, and finally said, “Can I see what you’re reading?” Rewind sent xem the site address, and for a little while xe was blessedly quiet.

“…This is really boring.”

“Sorry.”

Xe sat down again and leaned against Rewind, looking over their shoulder like xe was trying to see their HUD. Rewind absentmindedly patted xyr chest, hoping it would be enough attention for xem. It was taking longer and longer to understand each passage with Jazz dividing their concentration, and finally Rewind just gave up. They glanced up at Orion, who was completely oblivious to all the noise Jazz was making, and sighed. “Fine. I’ll read when we get home. You win. The squeaky wheel gets the slagging grease.”

“And I’m the squeakiest,” said Jazz happily. “I really am sorry for distracting you but I’m just, I dunno, hyped up. Still in people mode, yanno?”

“My people mode is the same as all my other modes,” Rewind said, baffled. “Do you switch?”

“Yeah?”

Orion briefly surfaced to comment on part of section nine: “Rewind, have you gotten to the description of Tungsten's term on the Kaonite Senate? You might find it interesting.”

“I’m sure I will,” they said quickly, before she could turn all her concentration to reading again, “but can we actually go? I don’t have your powers of focus, and Jazz is driving me up the wall.” The main thing you needed for power of focus was more multithreaded processing, which Rewind wasn’t equipped for, having been framed as a data analyst.

Orion nodded and started walking toward the door, still looking like she might be reading. “I _could_ distract her too,” mumbled Jazz. “I just don’t want to.”

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Rewind.

“I meant it as one.”

Rewind honestly didn’t know what to make of that. When they looked up Jazz’s biolights had gone a few shades bluer. Wow. Um. “Thanks.”

Rewind had no idea how to deal with that kind of compliment (the kind that it wasn’t even clear what they were being complimented on?) so they just kept reading all the way back to the temp hab.

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tungsten was Kaon's one and only Disposable Senator. She gained political power through the black market, using her native business savvy to get rich and powerful on smuggling. She managed to blackmail her way onto the state Senate, where she was of course widely disliked. She was assassinated after 912 days in office, though if she'd been less careful it would have been sooner. She didn't have a chance to make any revolutionary laws, but she probably wouldn't have if she could; she was much more focused on protecting her own interests. She holds the Kaonite record for having the most people murdered, which is pretty damn impressive in Kaon.


	18. Chapter 18

Thankfully, when they got to the temp hab the place was in a bit of chaos. Blaster was finally unpacking her broadcasting equipment from its compact tower in the corner, causing everyone in the front room to hover uncertainly around the walls, wondering if they would make things worse by trying to help. Except for Red Alert, of course, who was trying to get Ironhide and Prowl to move their weapons cache into a different room. Why exactly did they have that again? Did they think it would be cool if an organized militia saw them as a real threat? Then again, Rewind wasn’t entirely sure Kaon could muster an organized militia if it tried.

“What’s going on?” asked Orion, the only one of the returning party who wasn’t probably too embarrassed to speak.

“Unpacking! Gonna make a broadcast, aren’t I?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t made one yet in the two weeks we’ve been in Kaon. Would you like any help with your equipment?”

“Yeah, can you get the other end of the power cell? I’m trying to get it over by the editing table. Oof. And… there we go. Thanks, Orion. Can you guys seriously get all those guns off the floor? I don’t even know what some of those _are_.”

With the military bots clearing off the floor and Red Alert’s goal finally achieved, she turned back to Megatron, who was standing in the doorway, and resumed what seemed to be an argument from earlier. She wanted to install cameras in the temp hab, which Megatron thought would be a waste of time and money since they probably wouldn’t be here for that long anyway. Rewind was inclined to agree, but it was also true that Red Alert would be a lot happier if she could put in extra security.

Rewind approached them as Megatron was explaining that she didn’t know if her anonymous donor would give them any more money. “Excuse me, I think I’ve got a compromise that might make both of you happy.” They turned, both looking a little skeptical. “It’s likely that there are already quite a lot of cameras throughout Kaon, right? How are your hacking skills, Red Alert?”

“I don’t _hack_ ,” she said disdainfully. “I make things _more_ secure, not less.”

“Okay, but consider, Kaon’s government is extremely corrupt and there’s no way they’re not using what surveillance they have to hurt civilians. All I’m saying is, we could ride on their system without having to spend a bunch of money we might not be able to afford, and still make sure we’re safe.”

“Does Kaon _have_ an extensive video surveillance network?” asked Megatron. “It’s not exactly the best organized of city-states.”

“ _I_ will do some research,” said Red Alert. “I will of course require an escort for my reconnaissance expeditions, to avoid suffering Jazz’s fate.”

“Excuse me?” asked Jazz from the other side of the room. Red Alert acted like she hadn’t heard xem.

“I’d prefer you, Megatron, but I’m aware you would rather be in the arena, so Ironhide will do.”

Jazz nudged Ironhide, who had an armful of guns, and said something quietly to em. “What!” ey said, and stomped over to Red Alert. “What’s this I hear about being drafted as a bodyguard? I’m already Orion’s bodyguard, I ain’t got time to be yours too!”

“You had plenty of time this morning while she was out,” said Red Alert with frosty indifference.

“In the interest of domestic harmony I am willing to take Ironhide’s place,” said Prowl.

“You’re a bit small,” said Red Alert, turning to Prowl, who was in fact a little shorter than Red Alert herself. “You’re not exactly intimidating. I’m not looking for fighting skill, which I’m well aware you have a great deal of. I just need someone who _looks_ like they could stove a few heads in. Deterrent, not weapon.”

“Hey!” said Ironhide. Red Alert looked at em. “Fine, I’ll come with you. But you better do something about that attitude or it might be _your_ head that gets stoved in.”

Red Alert’s eyes and biolights went very pale and bright, and her entire body stiffened. She didn’t say anything, just stared up at Ironhide. Rewind recognized it as terror with a thin coat of bravado.

“Red, ey don’t mean that. Ey’re trying to make a joke, and ey’re absolute scrap at it.” Rewind stepped up to her side and glared up at Ironhide with all the corrosive disgust they could muster. “No-one’s going to hurt you, and if they try me and Orion and Megatron will make sure they pay for it.”

Megatron narrowed her eyes and put a hand on Red Alert’s shoulder—she jolted in alarm. “You are under our protection,” Megatron said. “Just as we are under yours.”

Red Alert sagged back against the wall, all her energy drained. Ironhide was somehow managing to look both sheepish and aghast at the same time. “I didn’t mean it like _that_. I was just kind of, you know, in the military friendly threats are like… sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” said Red Alert faintly. “But I think I’ll take my chances with Prowl.”

—

Blaster started her broadcast later that evening. At 2300 she and Squawkbox were sitting together, going over the script in quiet voices, before she finally started up the recording equipment. Squawkbox left, with Prowl and Megatron as bodyguards, to tap one of Kaon’s nearby long-range transmission arrays.

Half an hour later she got the go-ahead from Squawkbox and turned on her microphone with a theatrical flick. “Hello, Cybertron! You might have noticed Photon Blaster has been quiet for a while—I’m real sorry about that, we met up with some friends and ended up moving to a whole nother city-state, but now we’re at it again, fomenting rebellion. I’m actually hanging out with Rewind of Petrohex, believe it or not. Say hi, Rewind!”

“Er,” said Rewind, alarmed, “shouldn’t you give a bot some warning before you ask them to be on a radio show?”

“That’s Rewind, folks. I’ve never met anyone who loves planning more. It’s served them well so far. But enough about us. Tonight I’d like to turn the spotlight on the brave bots in Iacon who are still fighting the good fight. The New Cycle’s Protests have been going on for nearly two months now in spite of the State Guard’s best efforts. Over 256 Disposables and laborers have been killed. So let’s check on the numbers for the police and Guard who have been facing off against those fearsome opponents: seventeen. Seventeen military bots have been killed, and two civilians, which some of you might recognize as _astronomically fragged up and horrifying_ when 269 of our sibs are lying in the smelter. Sorry, that’s 269 who we _know_ about. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot more I’ve not heard of.”

Rewind thought they felt the energon freeze in their fuel lines for a moment. They had left 269 bots to die in Iacon fighting for equality. Rewind, personally, had started a movement that would go on to get hundreds of people killed, and then had run away like a coward. They were here swimming in all the energon they could drink while Hi-Pass was _at best_ starving slowly to death, and he wasn’t even fighting.

“In Polyhex,” Blaster was saying, “some bots didn’t even wait for a protest to take their anger out on Disposables. Easy targets, you see.”

They had run away from Iacon and now bots in Polyhex were getting murdered.

“And in Tarn—”

Rewind got up and left the room, left the temp hab, walked away again onto the twilit streets of Kaon.

Eight minutes later they were curled into alt mode in the narrowest alley they could find, indulging in a mental loop of _It’s my fault—they wouldn’t have died if it wasn’t for me—when I try to help people I just end up killing them—the presumption of thinking I could ever make anything better—it’s my fault_ —

Red Alert’s voice cut into their head. “ _Rewind. You should not be outside alone. Come back_.”

“ _I don’t care._ ”

“ _What? Tell me your location._ ” When Rewind didn’t reply, Red Alert said, “ _I_ knew _I should have installed trackers in you. You are always getting into trouble._ ” After another minute of silence, “ _Well, you told me I should learn to hack_.”

Rewind turned off their comms transceiver and went into standby.

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why is Ironhide UTTERLY SHOCKED that Red Alert gets scared when ey threaten to beat her up?? Polyhexian military culture is, honestly, absolute slag. Most military culture on Cybertron is slag if you ever plan on interacting with civilians, ever. It involves a lot of threats, play fighting, and absolutely real injuries. Their commanders allow it because it keeps them sharp or something, which is worth the repair bill. Ugh. I hate the military.


	19. Chapter 19

They woke when their proximity sensor went off—they’d forgotten to disable it before powering down. The thought threads they’d been running were paused, but they still felt miserable, and didn’t turn on their sensors. Haptics and gyroscopes couldn’t be turned off, though, and Rewind was alarmed enough by being suddenly picked up that their audioreceptors turned on.

“—out you, nobody knew why you left and we all thought something awful must have happened to you! You were only out here for half an hour but you turned off your comm and we didn’t know if you moved since Red Alert managed to track your signal so we rushed over here to make sure and I’m glad you’re still here but you’d better talk to me. Rewind? Can you hear me? Please answer so I know you’re not, like, actually dead or something.”

Rewind turned their audioreceptors off again. It felt like sulking but they still weren’t ready to be a person again.

Eventually, after their accelerometers told them they’d been carried around for a while, someone started tapping insistently on their outer plating. Rewind, who was cataloguing all the ways they could have done better for the Iaconian protesters, ignored it. If they’d taken more time to explain to everyone about peaceful resistance—or would the police have thrown grenades anyway? Peaceful resistance was never going to convince the Senate, they’d just been _idealistic_. Stupid. They’d thought that if they could just make people listen to the truth they’d want to change things.

Tap tap pause tap pause tap tap tap pause tap tap pause, tap pause taptap. Distantly Rewind recognized it as binary for “ _transform_ ,” the imperative glyph. Why were the Polyhexians so stupid? Why did everyone think they had any chance of winning against bots trained and armed by the government?

“ _Rewind_ ,” said the binary. These were not bots who would be satisfied with peaceful protest. No matter what Rewind said to them they wouldn’t have stopped. Rewind hadn’t been a _leader_ , just a catalyst.

“ _Worried._ ” Rewind really had been presumptuous. Not everyone thought the way Rewind did, of _course_ they didn’t all want what Rewind wanted. The problem of uniting the lower castes against Functionism was starting to look impossible. And they would seriously have to rethink the idea that nonviolence was the most effective course of action. Maybe Megatron—

Urgent tapping finally interrupted their train of thought. “ _TRANSFORM NOW OR GET SCRAPPED_.”

They returned to root mode to scowl up at Jazz, who was ready with xyr fist to start tapping dents in their armor. “What?” they snapped. “Can you not see I’m busy?”

Jazz started shouting something, but Rewind didn’t remember to turn their audioreceptors on until halfway through the sentence, so what they heard was “—n your _own_ and won’t _talk_ to anyone or get out of alt mode and you expect us to just leave you to do whatever? We were worried for your _safety_ , mech, and you come out of your shell like ‘I’m _busy_ , _obviously_ , any idiot could’ve figured out I was just taking my sweet time contemplating my own rusty _T-cog_!’ ”

They’d never seen Jazz this angry. Where was all this scrap coming from? “All right, calm _down_! I’m telling you right now I’m _fine_ so stop screaming. There’s seriously no reason to run your fan about it.”

“You stupid idiot,” Jazz said, sounding like xyr vocalizer was being squeezed. “I’m worked up because you could’ve almost died again!”

_And everyone would have been better off_ , they almost said, but caught themself just in time. There was no way they’d get away with saying something like that, especially to Jazz. And they didn’t really mean it. Instead they muttered, “Well, I’m fine. Happy?”

“Delirious,” xe said flatly, but in spite of xyr tone xe pulled Rewind into a tight hug.

Over xyr shoulder, Rewind saw seven worried faces (plus Ironhide’s slightly uncomfortable one), which… was one too many. There were two more Disposables in the room, one blue and one purple. Obviously they were the only ones who could have gotten Rewind out of the alley, because even Jazz wouldn’t have fit… Rewind ran a quick probability analysis.

Awkwardly, with their arms wrapped around Jazz’s chest and their head barely coming above the spoiler on xyr back, Rewind said, “You two aren’t, er. By any chance…?”

“Squawkbox?” asked the blue one, an airborne scout frame with a sharp hooked face. “Good guess.”

Jazz half-turned to look at them. “Yeah, I was gonna ask about that after I finished telling off Rewind.” Xe looked back down at Rewind and whispered, “I’m still mad, though.”

The blue scout tipped their head up imperiously. “Yes, well, you wouldn’t believe this, but it’s actually pretty much completely terrible to be a Disposable, even in Nyon. So we did some fancy wiring and reworked our T-cogs—we’re effectively triple changers now. Beastbox is a _genius_ with wiring. I just happened to be friendly enough with them to make a good experimental partner, knew a couple of Disposable medics who could make sure our sparks didn’t burn out, that sort of thing.” They stilled for a couple of seconds, looking down at the bot whose shoulder they perched on. “Well, I’m naturally very modest,” they continued, as if Beastbox had said something out loud. “It’s not like I’m a networking genius or anything.”

“I still can’t believe you didn’t think to tell us,” said Red Alert from where she stood by Megatron, arms crossed. “It could have been a _huge_ security risk. Not to mention that it doesn’t make me at all inclined to trust you.”

“You’re really going to complain that we didn’t think it was a good idea to tell a bunch of bulks that we’re secretly Disposables? I wonder _why_. Just ‘cos you’re running a revolution for our rights doesn’t mean _you_ have a right to all our personal info. And there was no way we were gonna split up just to make you more comfortable.” They turned to glance quickly at Beastbox again. “Yeah, we’re just gonna keep sticking together, actually. And if you don’t like that you can fight us. BB has a pretty mean punch, so I wouldn’t.”

The aerial—Squawktalk? Rewind thought they’d accidentally introduced themself as Squawktalk when they met Rewind—hopped down onto the floor and started to fold up their wings in a way Rewind had never seen before. Beastbox pushed up on their hands and the two of them _connected_. When they straightened up they were Squawkbox again.

Rewind stared, fascinated. “Squawk… er. Both of you, I guess? Can I talk to you in private?”

They looked a bit edgy. “About what?”

“I’m not going to tell anyone without your permission!” said Rewind. “I just, I guess, want to find out more about your circumstances and how this happened. It’s absolutely historic!”

“All right,” said Squawkbox (or Squawktalk?). “And Red Alert—no listening in.”

Rewind started to get up, but Jazz’s hands stayed on their waist like they were magnetized.

“Don’t be clingy, Jazz,” said Rewind. Feeling bold, they leaned over to flick xyr chin lightly. As they left the room they said, over their shoulder, “I’ll be back.”

Squawkbox was sitting on the IT charge slab they’d gotten for Jazz, twiddling their fingers. Rewind told the door to close and leaned on the wall, far away so they wouldn’t seem too forward. They were already embarrassed about what they’d just done with Jazz. Which would be called flirting if someone competent did it. Well, _anyway_ …

“First off, should I call you Squawkbox? It’s kind of weird to call two people by one name.”

“I’m not _exactly_ two people. We link our brains up too when we connect, so it’s more like we’re both deciding on what to say and do.” They laughed. “That’s why even though it’s technically Squawktalk talking we don’t sound quite the same.”

“You don’t go on quite so much,” said Rewind, amused.

“Yeah. Among other things. I just, I don’t want this to be weird. Is everyone going to make it weird?”

“Honestly, I can’t speak for everyone. But if they make it weird I’ll tell them off.” There was a pause. Rewind thought Squawkbox might not buy that they could tell people off effectively.

“Can I… I mean, I know you have questions for me, but can I ask what was up with the whole… Blaster said you just ran out of the temp hab, but she had to keep broadcasting so she asked me and Megatron and Prowl to find you. And you turned up in an alley and kind of incidentally made me blow my cover.”

Rewind sighed. “What’s up is I’m stupid. I get really angry sometimes and do stupid things, even though I _always_ regret it about half an hour later. This time I was angry at myself for… It’s not important. I’ve got the hang of _constructive_ thinking again. Anyway, I’m really sorry what I did hurt you. I wasn’t thinking about anyone but myself.” They’d actually managed to be selfish about feeling guilty about being selfish. Amazing.

“It’s okay, I guess. I mean, apology accepted. You just… don’t really give the impression of ever being selfish. You seem like you’re always fighting for other people. Maybe that’s too weird, sorry.”

“…It is a little weird.” Rewind was silent for a while, trying to think of what to say. “I don’t normally like to talk about myself, but it’s not a big deal. I’m way more interested in you, though. Like, you’re an incredible innovator. Bulk scientists have been trying to make this connection thing happen since the Golden Age.”

Squawkbox smiled, accepting the change of subject. “Funny thing, they somehow forgot to consider actual personality compatibility. For fifteen million years. Bulks, right?”

“No way.”

“Really. We did a little research after we had it mostly figured out—to get medical tips—and the bulk scientists could never understand why their test subjects kept burning out their CPUs when they tried to talk. It seemed like they kind of tried to turn two brains into one brain, which was a really stupid idea.”

“No kidding. Then the T-cog modification was the hardest part for you?”

“Well, BB helped with the design but it was mostly Scalpel. She’s kind of scary intense but there’s no-one better when you need a really weird illegal surgery. She was brilliant helping BB with the wiring, too.”

Rewind came to sit by Squawkbox on the slab. “Can you tell me about this in _exhaustive_ detail? It’s absolutely historic and I’d love to do a treatise on your process—if you want to be credited of course we can be coauthors.”

Squawkbox grinned. “Well! Just as long as you don’t publish it yet… It’s _quite_ a story…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beastbox is nonverbal, but they are REALLY GOOD at beatboxing. Of course! Squawkbox... is not. Squawktalk has worse than no sense of rhythm and it messes them both up. It's the one reason BB ever wants to be an individual, normally.


	20. Chapter 20

When Rewind found out Megatron was actually going to fight in a real actual arena fight, they were impressed. Orion’s reaction could be better described as _distressed_ , and Red Alert, as usual, was fretting. Even moreso because they were all going to the fight and she didn’t want anyone to get lost, kidnapped, mugged, shot, put on the news… et cetera.

Megatron put a hand on her shoulder and said it would be fine, _really_. Weirdly enough it actually seemed to relax Red Alert, who sighed and released a little of the tension in her frame.

So, just two months after she’d started training, Megatron fought in the arena. It wasn’t a high-profile fight, more like an opening act for an opening act for the main event, but the crowd seemed decently impressed when she stood with one leg on top of her opponent’s face. It seemed to make Orion a little uncomfortable, and Rewind couldn’t blame her. It was hard to remember that the small tank who ended up with a crushed leg had signed on for this. Orion watched the whole time anyway, rapt but frowning slightly.

After the fight Megatron came up to the stands to meet them, with a couple slaps on the back from other gladiators on the way. Up close Rewind could see the scratches and dents in her armor—they were glad she wasn’t fighting in the rank that used guns and artillery.

“Nice!” said Jazz as she approached. “So, was it easy?”

Megatron looked at xem, smiling faintly. “No. I thought I might die a few times. Here’s some advice: in the real world, _never_ fight someone who’s as good as you. You don’t need that kind of uncertainty when you’re fighting for your life.”

“Woah.” Xe sounded impressed. “Hardcore.”

Without warning there was a yell somewhere above them, and two blurs shot down from the arena’s roof. With a loud clang a couple of Disposables landed on Megatron’s shoulders, whooping.

“Megatron!”

“Hey, nice job!”

“We thought you’d eat it for sure but you got ‘im! Pow, wham!”

“ _Ow_ ,” said Megatron, looking around at one of them. “What did I say about jumping on me right after a fight?”

“You said don’t do it but come _on_.”

“I suppose you might as well stay up there, then,” said Megatron with unusually good grace. “These terrors are Frenzy and Rumble. They work as staging technicians here and for some reason they’ve decided we’re friends.”

“You’re the only one who talks to us besides work stuff,” said the red and black one. “I’m Frenzy.”

“I’m Rumble,” said the blue one. They were almost identical besides their colors; both standard bipedal root mode configuration, only a little bigger than Rewind themself. Each had two enormous guns on his back—was that just Kaon? From the way they spoke together they were almost certainly spark twins. “We already know who you are,” Rumble added.

“Yeah, Megatron talks about you guys a lot. You gonna introduce us?”

Megatron sighed. “I’m sorry. They’re always this exhausting. Orion Pax, Rewind, Jazz, Red Alert, Blaster, Squawkbox, Prowl, and Ironhide.” She pointed out each of them as she said their names.

“Cool,” said Frenzy. “You don’t look like revolutionary leaders. Not like Megatron.”

Rumble zeroed in on Rewind. “You’re a bit small, aren’t you?”

“Why is that literally the first thing everyone says to me?” Rewind snapped.  “ ‘Wow, you’re a bit titchy for a political leader! How do you ever manage!’ Most people I think, oh, well, maybe they’ve never _seen_ a Disposable before, but I don’t know what _your_ excuse is.”

Frenzy and Rumble laughed. “Oh, wow, I get why now!” said Rumble. “I like this guy.”

“No offense,” Frenzy added. “I’m impressed. I’d never get anyone to listen to me long enough to take me seriously.”

“The longer anyone listens to you the less seriously they take you,” said Rumble.

“So true. You wanna give us the spiel?”

“Why?” asked Rewind. “Are you in need of convincing?”

Frenzy leaned on his elbow, teetering over the edge of Megatron’s chest. “Naw, I just wanna hear it from you. Whoa!” He slipped off and crashed to the ground. “I’m okay. Ow.” Rumble leapt down to join him as he sprang to his feet. “Ta-da!”

“Are you saying you want to join us, then?” asked Blaster. “I can’t tell if I’m getting a revolutionary vibe or a let’s-mess-with-Rewind vibe here.”

“Eh, we might,” said Frenzy. “Hanging out with Megatron’s sure safer than hanging out with other bulks.”

“And we _do_ hate our measly pay. We do good work, ya know?”

“So we’ll think about it.”

“We’ll think even harder about it if you have energon sticks.”

—

When they got home, Red Alert immediately went out again (with both Ironhide _and_ Prowl, to make sure Ironhide behaved). Rewind was really interested to see whether she would actually be able to hack Kaon’s public security system—it wasn’t really all that public, which meant it might be guarded. Megatron and Orion sat down with Squawkbox to go over scripting, except Jazz kept hanging around Megatron like xe was waiting for the opportunity to ask her a bunch of annoying questions about the fight. So Rewind grabbed xyr arm and dragged xem into the other room.

“What?” xe asked.

“You were gonna interrogate Megatron about her fighting technique, right?”

“There’s a chance.” Xe looked maybe the tiniest bit guilty. “So?”

“So she’s _busy_. Why are you so keen on being a gladiator, anyway?”

“Do you remember when I got scrapped ‘cos I couldn’t take down an unarmed opponent even with my giant laser gun? Does that sound familiar? Give you any hints?”

“I just don’t get this whole bulk thing where physical power is your primary measure of worth,” Rewind muttered.

“Bulk thing? It’s—” Xe stopped. “I guess it is a bulk thing. I dunno, I just don’t feel like there’s much else I can do. I’m _trained_ for fighting, you know? I was gonna be a police officer. Before I realized we were basically just getting paid to be horrible to low-castes.”

“Too bad you don’t have a way to acquire new skills. You might need a brain module for that.”

“Rewind!” said Jazz in mock astonishment. “Are you teasing me?”

“Hmmmm. I _wonder_.” Rewind hopped up onto the slab. “Have you really been training to fight your whole life? I’ve just realized I know almost nothing about you. You were a police cadet in Iacon, you somehow ended up in the southern hemisphere long enough to learn Black Sixteen, and you’re decent enough to care about Disposables getting murdered.”

“I dunno, that’s pretty much it for me.” Rewind gave xem a look and xe grinned. “All right, I’ll spill. But I propose a trade. You get to ask something about me, and I get to ask something about you. Sound good?”

“All right. I’m willing to play.” Rewind wasn’t certain it was a fair trade, but they did want to know. And they kind of wanted to answer, too. “You’re from Polyhex, right? How’d you end up in the Iaconian police?”

“It’s not all that interesting. I was framed for light combat and scouting and everyone in my batch thought being a police officer was really glamorous. So me and Speedrun went to Iacon. He decided to work for the Senate as a courier when he saw how hard it was to get into the police academy. I love that guy, I should probably call him.” Xe smiled fondly into space, then refocused and looked around. “Now for you—I want to know what you were thinking when you ran off.”

Damn. “Right for the spark, huh? …well… I’ve always had a temper, I guess. You’ve seen me get mad at people who aren’t taking me seriously. Sometimes I get mad at myself.” They paused, struggling to find and say the right words.

“Not for not taking yourself seriously, though,” said Jazz.

Rewind sighed. “No. Sometimes I just feel like I’m, bad. I, like, I couldn’t do anything right, and then I ran away—” They choked off the rest of the incoherent sentence, feeling horribly like they were revealing a weakness to an enemy. Jazz _wasn’t_ their enemy.

“Maybe I should’ve started off with a less personal question,” said Jazz. Xe shifted closer to Rewind. They didn’t dare lean on xem.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I think I kind of have trust issues,” said Rewind. It was a weak joke.

“Especially around bulks, huh?”

“Wouldn’t you, in my place? Er, I’m used to being self-sufficient. Plus, the last person I loved more than anything is… is probably rusting in a cell or worse ‘cos I ran away from Iacon… I should have…”

“Getting arrested wouldn’t have helped him,” said Jazz. “Getting killed _definitely_ wouldn’t have helped him.”

“Sometimes I think getting killed would’ve helped the movement,” Rewind said. “Everyone loves a martyr. And then I remember how many martyrs we already had and _no-one cared_ because they were Disposables. I _hate_ —everything.”

Jazz took Rewind’s hand and they squeezed xyrs tightly, furious. Xe was quiet for a little while and then xe said softly, “Since you went above and beyond on answering that one, I’ll tell you I’m a little mad at myself too. I want to protect you, but I can’t protect you from stuff like _that_. It’s just not possible, so I have to watch you suffer. You’re so strong, Rewind. But you can’t do this alone. You have so many friends but you won’t let us help you.”

“I _want_ to,” they mumbled. “Except I kind of don’t. It’s so much easier to always be the guy who helps other people.”

“I know the feeling, I _really_ do. I kind of do the same thing. But we’re probably gonna get so messed up if we keep doing that.”

“Can we talk about this later? We can make a list of steps to help me be less of a slag pile and everything. I just. Don’t want to think about it for a while.”

Jazz didn’t say anything else. Xe kept holding Rewind’s hand and, after a little while, started playing quiet music Rewind didn’t recognize. It didn’t have any lyrics, just familiar, comfortable pure sinusoid harmonics. They could hardly believe they felt safe enough to go into standby, but for once they decided not to question it. It was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why is Megatron so good at fighting? She shouldn't be that good after only a couple months!
> 
> There are several parts to this. First, as Rewind failed to get, she DID have to do a little fighting for self-defense while she was a miner in Tarn. Second, and more importantly, she has very high spatial-kinesthetic intelligence so she more easily intuits fighting styles for specific opponents. Turns out it’s really fulfilling to do something you’re naturally good at when you feel like it’s for an important purpose!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Run, Run, and when that's done, Freak the Fuck Out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9610082) by [BlueJay16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueJay16/pseuds/BlueJay16)




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